Chewy Molasses Cookies

I shared a story in my oatmeal bread post about the sweet, sticky, treat-- molasses! Oh I just love it! When Becky was teaching me how to make that oatmeal bread and was sharing her molasses story with me, I asked her if she knew of molasses cookies. She said that they love the molasses cookies from Trader Joes. On my next visit to Trader Joes, I headed over to the cookie bags and inspected their molasses cookies. How thick were they? What consistency did they have? Were they soft or crunchy? 

I came home and researched a TON of molasses cookie recipes. I got to pick and choose certain things I liked from each recipe, that I thought would yield the desired result.

Here is the final product for chewy, sweet molasses cookies. A great, rich (almost ginger snap) flavor for holiday cookie baking!

Recipe: 

¾ cup (1 ½ sticks) butter

1 cup packed brown sugar

¼ cup molasses

1 large egg

1 tsp cinnamon

¼  tsp nutmeg

¼ tsp salt

1 ½ tsps baking soda

2 cups flour

¼ cup granulated sugar for rolling

Cream together the butter, brown sugar, and molasses. Then mix in the egg, then cinnamon, nutmeg, salt, baking soda, and finally the flour:

Roll dough balls between your hands and then roll them in a bowl of granulated sugar. Place at least an inch apart on your cookie sheet:

Bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes... they will look like puff balls, but take them out after no more than 10 minutes, and they will flatten out as they cool into their nice dense chewiness!

Let cool for a few minutes on a wire cooling rack.