Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmolasses.
For the month of November, the Tuesdays With Dorie rules are a bit more relaxed - we can bake and post any of the month's recipes on any Tuesday we like. You can find a list of all this month's recipes here, if you're curious.
I'm starting off with the Sugar-Topped Molasses Spice Cookies, selected by Pamela of Cookies with Boys. She'll be posting the recipe on her blog at some point this month, or you can refer to pages 76-77 of Dorie Greenspan's Baking: From My Home to Yours if you can't wait that long.
You might think with all the Halloween sweets and treats around here, I'd have no interest in cookie-baking for a while. Well, that's partly right - I have no interest in the candy at all any more (once I'd snitched the good stuff from the kids' stashes, I was done), and as for cookies, well, I'd had enough of the frosted variety for sure. I didn't want any kid stuff. I wanted a grown-up cookie. And that's just what these crisp, darkly sweet cookies are - cookies for grown-ups.
They're a lot like gingersnaps (or "chimpersnacks" as Julia calls them) - thin and crisp and spicy. Great for dunking, if you are so inclined, in cold milk, hot coffee, hot tea - or whatever you prefer.
I made them yesterday before Julia and I made these leftover candy concoctions, and they were very easy to put together.
First, I whisked together my dry ingredients - flour, baking soda, salt, ginger, cinnamon, allspice, and pepper. The recipe calls for a pinch ("small or not so small") of cracked or coarsely ground black pepper. I didn't pinch. I think I put in about 8 grinds' worth from the pepper mill. I really love pepper.
And in the bowl of my KA stand mixer, I creamed the butter...
added the brown sugar and the molasses...
And beat them all together for a couple of minutes.
And then I ate it all. No I didn't really.
Julia popped in to get something from the fridge and make a face at me. She wasn't interested in helping me, though.
I continued on, with the adding of the egg,
and then the dry ingredients,
being careful not to over-mix. And here's my dough:
Now, Dorie says to divide it into two portions and wrap them in plastic, then either freeze them for half an hour or refrigerate for an hour. I went a slightly different route. I rolled each portion up in a sheet of parchment paper, like so:
I stowed one portion in the freezer for another time, and put the second portion in the fridge for about an hour.
I didn't divide the dough into twelve, either. I just sliced about a quarter-inch-thick piece, cut that in half, and rolled each portion into a ball before rolling it in sugar. I wanted a lot of smaller cookies, rather than a dozen larger ones. I flattened them, as directed, with the bottom of a glass, and popped them in the oven.
Mine baked perfectly in 12 minutes. While they were still warm, there was a bit of chewiness to the bite, but once they'd cooled, they were completely dry and crisp.
I'm already thinking of adding these to my great big long list of Christmas cookies that I send out every year. I know, I don't really NEED to add another cookie, but it's always good to change things up a bit. And these, while they are similar to some of the other hard, spiced cookies I make, are definitely different because of the molasses flavor. So I'm considering it.
I'll keep you posted.
And in the meantime, you should head on over to the Tuesdays with Dorie blogroll and start checking out what other people have baked this first week.
And come back here next week - I am 99% sure I'll be making the Cran-Apple Crisps next.
