Molasses Crinkle Cookies

 I saw a video for these one day on Preppy Kitchen.  The next, I was making the rye-style bread and noticed the recipe on the molasses jar label.  They're similar.  John's is better written and uses a different baking temperature, but they're almost the same.  I decided to go closer to the jar's recipe, but with some of Preppy Kitchen's adjustments.

The one-egg quantity of these is still almost three dozen cookies.  That's fine in December, not so much in January.  There's a workaround for that.  Bake one dozen as written.  For the rest of the dough, make your cookie balls and place on a piece of wax paper on a baking sheet.  Freeze them, then place the frozen dough balls in a ziplock with the baking instructions.  Pull out however many you'd like to make while the oven is preheating, roll in the granulated sugar, and bake about 2 minutes longer than you would if they were only refrigerated.

I there's a lot of shortening in the Grandma's Molasses recipe (which for some reason isn't on their actual website).  Preppy Kitchen's used the same amount of unsalted butter.  I kind of split the difference here.  Butter softens cookies and shortening crisps them.  It's the same concept as using two different fats in a pie crust, to balance taste and texture.  You can alter the proportions to achieve the desired cookie texture.

1/2 C (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
1/4 C shortening
3/4 C light brown sugar, packed
1 egg, room temperature
*1/3 C molasses
1 tsp vanilla
2-1/4 C flour
2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cloves
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ginger
granulated sugar for rolling 

1.  Cream together butter, shortening, and brown sugar.  Beat in molasses, egg, and vanilla until fluffy.

2.  Separately, sift together flour, baking soda, salt, and spices.  Stir flour mixture into wet mixture until combined.  Do not overmix.  Chill until firm enough to handle, about 1 hour.

3.  Preheat oven to 350º.  Put a few tablespoons of granulated sugar in a small bowl for rolling the cookies, and line a baking sheet with parchment or a Silpat.

4.  Roll dough into 1-1/2" balls, a rounded Tablespoon.  Dip into sugar to coat the top half only.  Set 2" apart on cookie sheet.  My dough softened up while I was panning the first tray, so I put it back in the freezer while they were baking and did a second batch later.  Spritz the dough balls with a few drops of water.  I happen to have a "baking" spray bottle of water for this sort of thing, but shaking drops off your fingers is fine.

5.  Bake 10-12 minutes, until starting to brown around the edges.  By the time a dark cookie like this looks "done", it's overdone.  Allow to cool on the sheet until firm enough to move to a wire rack.  Cool and serve.  Leftovers can be frozen.

Makes about 32-36

Difficulty rating  :)