Slowing It Down, With Molasses

 What a week it’s been, and it’s only Thursday!

The Houston area dodged two storm bullets this week as both Marco and Laura spared us.  Marco kinda fell apart, which is exactly how we like our tropical storms here on the Gulf Coast - fizzled out. Laura was another story. Although Houston and much of Texas was spared, our neighbor Louisiana was hit hard last night as Hurricane Laura made landfall as a Category 4 storm. Although weakened now to a Category 1, Hurricane Laura is still expected to leave a lot of damage in her wake as she travels inland to Arkansas and then east. Family about 50 miles east of Lake Charles, Louisiana report widespread power outages in their area. It’s a mess, y’all. We in Houston feel lucky, but there’s always a little guilt too, when your neighbors get hit so hard.

Since I’m lucky enough to have power, I thought I’d celebrate by making a really simple but delicious batch of cookies:  Raisin Molasses Gems.  There are a million versions of this cookie out there, but I like my Aunt Dorothea’s best. However, that recipe, along with all my other recipes and my cookbook collection, are currently stuck in storage in New York (thanks again, COVID-19). But that’s a whole ‘nother story, and Lordy don’t get me started on that. 

In the absence of my Aunt Dorothea’s recipe, I turned to one from King Arthur Baking Company (formerly King Arthur Flour Company). If you aren’t familiar with this company, you need to make friends with them immediately! And no, they don’t give me anything for saying so, but I’ve used their flour and lots of other products for years. Their motto Try it Once, Trust it Always stands true. Plus, they are a 100% employee-owned company as well as a Certified B Corporation; sustainability and social consciousness are pillars of the company’s business model. My dad’s family were wheat farmers in Kansas, and I love that KAB sources their wheat from American farms. Check out their products and recipes here: kingarthurbaking.com and you can also find many varieties of King Arthur flour and mixes (including gluten free) on lots of supermarket shelves throughout the U.S. OK, enough with the unsolicited plug, let’s make cookies!

Soft Raisin Molasses Gems

8 tablespoons butter, softened

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/4 cup molasses 

1 large egg

1 and 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 cup raisins (or crystallized ginger pieces, see note below)

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

Heaping 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon 

1/2 teaspoon ginger

1/2 teaspoon cloves

Sugar for coating (regular granulated sugar, turbinado or coarse sparkling sugar)

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
• In a large mixing bowl, beat together butter and the 1/2 cup granulated sugar until combined. Beat in the molasses and the egg.
• In another bowl, combine the flour, raisins (or crystallized ginger, if using), baking soda, salt and spices. Stir to combine.
• Add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients, beating just until thoroughly combined.
• Dough will be sticky!
• Sprinkle the coating sugar into a cake pan, plate or shallow bowl.
• Scoop and roll dough into 1” balls, using your hands to roll into balls.
• Drop the dough balls a few at a time into the coating sugar, and roll to coat each dough ball completely.
• Space the cookies about 2” apart from each other onto the prepared baking sheets.
• Bake cookies 7-9 minutes. Centers will look soft and puffy.
• Remove cookies from oven, transfer to a wire baking rack and let cool completely.
• To maintain a soft texture, store the cooled cookies in an airtight container at room temperature.

Makes about four dozen 2” cookies.

As always, I read through the recipe and make sure I’ve got all the ingredients and set out anything that needs to soften (hi butter!) or come to room temperature (hello egg in adorable little lemon dish).

This is my favorite trifecta of baking spices:  cinnamon, ginger and cloves. In fact, if I’d had three kids, that’s probably what I would’ve named them. 

A confession here: I’m not that crazy about raisins. I don’t despise them (like cauliflower), but I don’t love them (like red cherry jelly beans) either.  It’s a weird thing to say in the middle of a post about raisin molasses cookies, I know, but there you go. I’ve accepted it, I’ve embraced it, and I’ve found a happy substitute. Hello, secret weapon...

I love these little guys, I do! I can snack on them straight outta the bag if there’s no one here to stop me.  And guess what? There’s no one here to stop me. Bwahahaha!

Now here’s a Very Important Caveat: for most people, this is just too much ginger. If you substitute these morsels for all the raisins, you REALLY have to hard-core love you some ginger. If I’m making these for family, I generally use 3/4 cup of raisins and just a 1/4 cup of the crystallized ginger bits.  Even though they are sweetened, they still have a bite.

Ok, so...butter and sugar:

Molasses and egg (p.s. thanks to my sister Laurie for the loan of her portable mixer. I miss my beautiful red KitchenAid stand mixer...can’t wait to see you again, gorgeous):

So. Pretty.

Dry ingredients. As previously mentioned, I am here all by my lonesome right now, so yes, I’m using a whole cup of the ginger bits. Double BwahahaHA. Measure and stir to combine...

Add the dry ingredients to the wet and mix juuuuust until everybody has had a quick chance to meet each other, not too long.

Yep, that’s long enough!  Now this next part is my favorite, and most little kids like doing this too, so you might get some free labor in the kitchen.  WASH YER FILTHY MITTS FIRST!

Pinch off a little of the dough and roll it between your palms to make a ball, roughly an inch round. Ish.

Ok remember that weird step about sugar in a pan or on a plate? Here’s why. Oops, using a shallow pasta bowl. Same diff. Roll a few dough balls and plop them in the sugar, like so...

And roll those bad boys around until they’re coated with sugar all over. Just like we would like for the real world to be.  Place them on prepped baking sheets (i.e., lined with parchment or lightly greased), about 2 inches apart.

~ Bakus Interruptis ~

Y’all, the weirdest thing just happened - I was just about to put these in the oven and my power went out! 

And this is the weather outside:

Nothin’ but blue skies.  

After some aggravated text messaging to my siblings (I may or may not have used some Special Words), they did some sleuthing and found out for me that the electric provider in my little neck of the woods also services much of East Texas and Louisiana. In order to prevent power overloads to storm-damaged lines and equipment in affected parts of their service area, they instituted rolling blackouts to unaffected areas. I get it, but a little notice would have been really appreciated. Oh well, I guess I can stop feeling guilty now about that whole “no impact” sitch.

Service came back on after about four hours, two anti-anxiety pills and a long drive to charge my almost-dead cell phone in the car. Good grief.

But hey, I’m back and ready to finish up these little guys!

So, just about seven or eight minutes in the oven and et viola!

They’re a little puffy in the center right out of the oven.

And then, when they’ve cooled off, they kind of flatten out a little and get all beautifully craggy but still soft and delicious!

I lost a batch...new oven and wasn’t listening for the timer. That is my story and I’m clinging to it. I wish my Mom were here, she loved the crispy burned ones 😇

And finally, a wide shot including the hurricane candles I almost had to use! Krikey.

This is not a fussy cookie, just pretty simple and delicious. Unless your power goes out in the middle of the deal. Then the simple part not so much, but still delicious in the end. And if you should happen to have some lemon curd about, oh my gosh is a dollop of that ever scrumptious alongside.

Stay safe and dry, be happy and kind.

❤️ Bonnie