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
Thank you so much — I hope you come back and visit often!
I stumbled onto your blog while looking for a molasses cookie recipe to make for my son. Great blog you have here! :)
This is amazingly the same exact recipe and instructions that are on the back of the Golding Farms Molasses bottle…
I've been trying out different molasses cookies for 3 years now. I've never been 100% satisfied. I am 99.9% satisfied with these fantastic cookies. Only a little disappointed in how flat they baked, maybe ill add less butter next time. Every person who tried the cookies said more than "love" they wanted to know when I was making again…the flatness and everything. WOW thank you for the great recipe.
Oh Yay! My grandma's molasses sugar cookie recipe uses Crisco which I am moving away from. These are almost identical, so look like a fabulous alternative. Thank you!
Wonderful wonderful photos too.
Thanks so much for all these comments! It makes me so happy that my grandma's cookies are finding their way to so many great folks. :-)
Kate,
I was just searching for a molasses cookie recipe. I am at a friend's and don't have my grandmother's (!) recipe with me. How delightful to have found not only your recipe but this fantastic blog. Can't wait to explore! Have a great day and thanks for sharing…
I love molasses cookies with a passion… and these might be the best ones I've ever had.
i think everyone has a grandma's molasses cookie recipe. your's is just like mine =) i love them. and i love your photos, too!
Thanks Jennifer! I have a lot of fun shooting them. :-)
Your photos are beyond STUNNING!!!! I am in awe!
Thanks so much! I shoot with a Nikon D700, usually with a 105mm lens, and either natural light or with my Impact cool lights, which give off a great daylight look. Glad you like the cookies!
Just found you smugmug site and checked out your blog…These all make me sooo want to get in the kitchen, everything looks so good. The photo of the food look so good! Whats in your camera bag? I can't wait to try some of your recipes… thanks for sharing! I love photography and cooking too!
I'd love to see the recipe card. :)
xo
Isn't it wonderful when good recipes can be passed from generation to generation?! I'm inspired to try those cookies. If you don't mind I'd love to direct our Foodista readers to your blog. Just add your choice of widget to this post and you're all set!