Old-Fashioned Molasses Crinkles (a.k.a Baking in the Dark)

A couple years back, a friend brought these cookies over as a hostess gift. Relatively demure in appearance, I had no idea just how delicious these cookies tasted. They are now on my “must make” list of holiday baking.

If these photos look dark it’s because it was dark when we baked them this morning. My 1st grader decided (at bedtime last night) that what he would really like to “share” at school today is a guessing game. “I want to write down all of the ingredients in something and then let my friends guess what it will make! Then I want to give them all one of the cookies!” How can a mom argue with that sort of glee and excitement?

And that is why we were baking at 6 a.m. I can only assume that my pre-7:30 a.m. actions of having the Make Ahead Oatmeal down their hatches, and a huge batch of cookies baked, will nominate me for a mom-of-the-week award. Then again, the smell of our kitchen when I came back in from waiting for the school bus was reward enough for today.

Old-Fashioned Molasses Crinkles

About 6 dozen cookies

2 cups of sugar
1 ½ cups of shortening
½ cup molasses, “original” (though you can use dark for a stronger taste)
2 eggs
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons ginger
3 teaspoons cinnamon
½ teaspoon salt
4 cups of all-purpose flour
Sugar (to roll the dough in)

Mix all of the ingredients above, except the flour. Let batter stand for 20 minutes, and then mix in the flour. Roll into balls the size of hickory nuts (which I estimate to be 1” balls).

Bake at 350 for 10 minutes. Let cool slightly on baking sheet then transfer to cooling rack.