Whenever I think of molasses, the word "comfort" immediately springs to my mind. Usually molasses is in recipes made during the fall and winter months, especially around Thanksgiving and Christmas. Well, today is a day in August and sometimes it is nice to have a little advance comfort before the Holiday season!
Since water is an unusual ingredient in these cookies, here's "Agua De Beber (Water to Drink)" sung by Astrud Gilberto.
OLD FASHIONED MOLASSES COOKIES
1 ¼ cups molasses
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 tablespoon pineapple juice
½ teaspoon almond extract
1 tablespoon water
¼ teaspoon salt
2 ½ cups all-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
½ teaspoon ground ginger
½ teaspoon ground allspice
¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
Pinch ground cloves
8 tablespoons butter, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup crystallized ginger, chopped into ¼-inch pieces
1 ½ cups Sugar in the Raw®
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
- Put molasses in a medium bowl. Stir in baking soda. Set the bowl aside for 10 minutes while molasses gets foamy and doubles in size.
- In a small bowl, combine pineapple juice, almond extract, water, and salt. Stir until salt dissolves.
- In a large bowl, combine flour, wheat flour, ginger, allspice, nutmeg, and cloves. Stir until mixed.
- In a second large bowl, whip butter and sugar with an electric mixer until creamed.
- Add molasses mixture and pineapple mixture to butter mixture. Beat until consistently mixed. Add flour. Beat until flour is incorporated—for about 90 seconds. Stir crystallized ginger pieces into mixture with a rubber spatula or wooden spoon.
- Put raw sugar on a large, flat plate. Drop dough that has a few pieces of the crystallized ginger in each spoonful onto the sugar on the plate. Coat each dough ball in the sugar. Place on baking sheet lined with a Silpat®.
- Put cookies in oven and turn it temperature down to 350 degrees. Bake for 9-11 minutes.
- Remove cookies to a cooling rack. Cookies will be crusty on the outside and soft on the inside.
