Molasses crinkles

Several days before Christmas I found myself in the grocery store in a Grinch-like mood. I muttered, probably audibly, to myself about the juggernaut of forced joy and the steamroller of excess and a simple celebration that had inflated to horrific proportions and reduced my wallet to whimpering. I reached for angrier and darker superlatives as I stalked the aisles, until I realized I had two good friends still to take care of. A foul mood became an angry panic. What to do? I was not going to the mall again. It was too late to order something online, and besides, when I’m in a rush I make unusual and regrettable gift choices, like a new translation of The Iliad for my fashion-forward cousin, or a scarf for the professional knitter.

Baked goods it was. I had no recipes with me, though, and couldn’t bear the thought of trekking home and back to the store. I needed a recipe on the back of something, anything, available at the supermarket, and the heavens led me to Grandma’s molasses.

What a find. Molasses is not a flavor I grew up with, and my appreciation of gingerbread, the only molasses-flavored good I encounter regularly, is strictly academic – I acknowledge that it is a traditional wintry treat, and that there was an unfortunate time when it was the height of indulgence. My appreciation for these molasses crinkles is sincere and un-academic. They come together in one bowl. They look warm and rustic, their crackled surfaces sparkling with sugar, and they’re spicy-sweet and chewy and tender. A generous helping of thick molasses keeps them moist for days, so they ship well.

Because I like to live dangerously, I played around with a recipe I had never made before and intended to box and mail the next day. I swapped butter for shortening, decreased the sugar, increased the spices, and because orange pairs happily with cloves, ginger, and cinnamon, I grated a fine snowfall of zest over the batter, to delicious effect.

If you’d like to take it up a notch, I suspect these would be transcendent sandwiched around ice cream – vanilla, buttermilk, butterscotch, ginger, or even egg nog.

Molasses crinkles, adapted from Grandma’s Molasses

¾ cup softened butter
1 cup sugar
1 egg
¼ cup molasses
2 ¼ cup flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon cloves
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon ginger
½ teaspoon nutmeg
2 teaspoons orange zest
¼ cup sanding sugar, for dipping (optional)

Mix together the butter, egg, sugar, and molasses. Stir in remaining ingredients until just combined, scraping the bottom of the bowl to make sure all flour is incorporated. Cover and chill dough at least 30 minutes and as long as overnight.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees and grease a baking sheet. Roll one tablespoon of dough at a time into a smooth ball, dip the top in sugar (sanding if you’ve got it, for extra sparkle, but granulated is fine), and place sugared side up on baking sheet. Sprinkle a few drops of water on each to create a crackled surface, and bake 10 to 12 minutes, rotating pans top to bottom and front to back halfway through. Cool completely on pan (this helps keeps the cookies chewy rather than crisp). Makes about 40 cookies.