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
Gayle @ Pumpkin 'N Spice says
So glad that you shared your Grandma’s recipe, Kate! Grandmas make the BEST food! Wish I had the entire stack of these babies!
Kate says
Grandmas DO make the best food!
Demeter | Beaming Baker says
Grandma’s cookies are the best! Love that you made this based off of your grandma’s recipe. Just looking at that stack makes me drool! Hope you’re having an awesome weekend Kate! :)
Kate says
Grandma’s cookies ARE the best! :)
Mary Ann | The Beach House Kitchen says
Those are the best kind of recipes Kate! These sound just wonderful. My son Sean loves molasses cookies. I suspect a few of these will be in his next care package!
Kate says
Don’t you just love making care packages for our chickies? :)
Jean | DelightfulRepast.com says
Oh my, I just wanted to reach into that picture and grab a couple of those! Your Grandma sounded just like mine with the pancakes!
Kate says
Aren’t our grandmas the best? :)
jen says
Thank you for these wonderful cookies and simplistic recipe. I look for this EVERY year…I really should write this down :)
Kate says
Or you can just keep coming back to Framed Cooks to visit! :) :)
Tarah says
LOVE, LOVE, LOVE!! Just made these and these very fantastic!!
Kate says
Tarah, I’m so glad! They are my favorite cookies in the whole wide world. :)
TaosRob says
At 8500 ft where we live most cookies spread too much. To remedy that problem we reduce the amount of sugar and fat.
Kate says
Thanks TaosRob…and wow, that is high up there! Must be beautiful.
Elsa L.B. says
I can’t wait to try this recipe. I love recipes that have been passed down through generations. Thank you for sharing your grandmothers recipe.
Kate says
You are so welcome – I hope you love it as much as I do!
Anonymous says
My grandma used to make something very similar to this but they were chewy and smooth on the top. I have the "recipe" but i do not think it is complete. Ot inam doing it wrong. I have tried many different times and have not been able to get them right. Does anyone have any suggestions or recipes. We just called them night cookies. I am not a great baker so any suggesstions would be great.
I can alos email the recipe
FramedCooks says
It usually makes about 30 or so for me.
Anonymous says
About how many cookies does 1 recipe make?
FramedCooks says
Definitely all-purpose. :)
Anonymous says
which flour do you recommend using – all purpose or self rising?
Joanne Travis says
I made a batch to send to my Dad and they disappeared before I got the chance to package them up! Just made another one tonight and am guarding it :)
The family's favorite recipe of the season. Thanks for sharing!
Anonymous says
my husband asked for molasses there his favorite i make cookies all the time but never molasses. but after reading your blog tomorrow will be the day. i'll get back and let you know how it went