My Grandma’s Molasses Cookies
This recipe for my grandma’s molasses cookies makes the perfect classic, spicy cookie. As she used to say, take one cookie for each hand!
This recipe for molasses cookies is one of my favorite cookie recipes ever, for a few different reasons.
First of all, they are just great cookies, rich with the flavors of molasses and ginger and cinnamon and sugar.
Second, they are a snap to make, and they turn out perfectly every time.
But most importantly, I make them from a recipe card handwritten by my grandmother, one of the most amazing people I have ever known. Warm, wonderful and just the right amount of spicy, they are cookie perfection. Let’s make them!
My grandmother didn’t do a lot of cooking, but what she made, she made well. I have a crystal-clear memory of being sent outside to play in the mornings on her beautiful Vermont farm with two slices of hot buttered cinnamon toast – one for each hand — and I have never been able to replicate the particular taste of that toast.
She made fantastic pancakes (with Vermont maple syrup of course), and always said she would make as many as we could eat, even if it was HUNDREDS, which my brother and I thought was one of the best things we had ever heard of.
She also made these perfect molasses cookies, and luckily for me at some point she wrote out the recipe for me, in her handwriting that I remember so well right to this day, and every once in a while something reminds me of them and I just have to have them.
For example, every time I am in Sissy’s Kitchen, which is fittingly in my grandmother’s Vermont town of Middletown Springs, I am reminded.
Sissy has a jar of something labeled “Gingersnaps.” 25 cents each. The first time I saw this jar I bought — well, never mind how many.
There they are in that jar on the left. And while Sissy may think they are gingersnaps, they tasted very much like my grandma’s molasses cookies, and to be eating them right in the middle of Middletown Springs…well, let’s just say it took me back a little.
And so here I am back in New Jersey, and after that first time with Sissy’s gingersnaps one of the first things I wanted to do was find that recipe and make those molasses cookies.
My Grandma’s Molasses Cookies
This recipe for my grandma’s molasses cookies makes the perfect classic, spicy cookie. As she used to say, take one cookie for each hand!
- Prep Time: 20 minutes
- Cook Time: 16 minutes
- Total Time: 36 minutes
- Yield: about 36 cookies 1x
- Category: Dessert
- Method: Oven
- Cuisine: American
Ingredients
- 3/4 cup melted butter
- 1 cup sugar
- 1/4 cup molasses
- 1 egg
- 2 cups flour
- 2 teaspoons baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon each of ground cloves, ginger and salt
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- Extra sugar for rolling
Instructions
- Line cookie sheets with parchment or silicone baking sheets.
- Combine butter, sugar, molasses and egg in large mixing bowl
- Combine flour, baking soda and spices in medium bowl
- Add flour mixture to butter mixture and stir until well combined
- Put in refrigerator until dough has hardened at least one hour.
- When you are ready to bake, preheat oven to 350.
- Scoop out dough (I find an ice cream scoop works well for this) and roll into 1 inch balls
- Roll balls in sugar and place on cookie sheet, well-spaced apart
- Press down slightly on cookie dough with the bottom of a glass or jar
- Bake for 8-10 minutes. Cool for about five minutes and then continue cooling on rack.
Updated from an earlier Framed Cooks post
I knew you’d want to “fix” it, continue cooling on rack (not “cooking”) My grandma would somehow have to re-soften her molasses cookies when we came to visit as they had gone a bit stale in the cookie jar, also the best potato chips were her “warmed on a cookie sheet” stale potato chips from our last visit, ah the memories one cookie can bring to mind. Love your blog.
Oh my goodness, thanks for the catch – all fixed! And yes, grandma treats memories are some of the best. :)
Thank you so for sharing your grandmother’ s recipe with us. These cookies look wonderful. Old family recipes are the best, can’t wait to try this recipe.
Thank you – they are my faves!
Isn’t it wonderful when we have a little bit of our family history available through recipes like your grandmother’s cookies that you enjoyed so much. I bet they are delicious.
They are the best! :)
Recipes that have been passed down generations are always the best!
Aren’t they? Extra sweetness.
Oh goodness, I ate too many Molasses Cookies over the Christmas Holiday, because I made a few batches and then my husband told me he doesn’t like molasses cookies anymore. Ummmm… since when?! ;) Needless I say I was forced to eat them all. hahaha. I’m adding your cookies to my list of must make as soon as I’m craving cookies again! Yours look wonderful, Kate!! Cheers!
It is our solemn duty to eat All The Cookies. :)
i know why they’re so good–SO much butter! i’d eat these like it was my job. :)
everything is better with butter!