Molasses Spice Crinkles

I made some cookies last night, so that Adrian could take some to work on what promised to be a cold winter day, and we could have something 'seasonal' for guests this evening.  There's something about cloves, ginger, and cinnamon that just makes me feel a little happier on a snowy day.

Molasses Spice Crinkles

1 1/2 cups butter, softened
2 cups sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup molasses
4 cups flour
2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp cloves
2 tsp ground ginger
2 tsp ground cinnamon (most people like cinnamon, so I'm a bit more generous)

Sugar for dusting (about 3/4 cup - I throw the remainder in my tea the next morning.)

Preheat the oven to 375.  I'm lucky enough to have a stand mixer, so I throw the butter and sugar together and let them get acquainted while I gather the other ingredients.  I have made these by simply creaming the butter and sugar in a large bowl as well.  Either way, do not double this recipe - it will be too difficult to manage the dough. Just make two batches - the dishes are already dirty, and you're going to be monitoring the oven for a while.

Once the butter and sugar are fluffy, add the eggs and molasses.  Beat until smooth,

In a separate bowl, measure the dry ingredients and give them a stir.  This, I drop into the mixer by the rounded spoonful, but you can add it in several portions to the wet ingredients until the flour is blended in.

This is where the fun starts.  I have a 'tablespoon' cookie scoop to make measuring out the dough easier for me.  The original recipe suggests that this recipe will make 10 dozen, baked 5-7 minutes. My scoop gives me 3 1/2 dozen fairly chewy, moist cookies - baked for 9-10 minutes, and allowed to cool.  I scoop the dough, roll it in a bowl of dusting sugar (you can get fancy and play with food coloring and demerara sugar if you want things to be more colourful), and bake them 8 to a tray. If you intend to freeze some for baking later, skip the sugar dusting, and later thaw fully to ensure the sugar will stick to your dough before baking.

If you made 10 dozen, these cookies would be smaller and more brittle like a gingersnap.  I've tried to duplicate the giant cookies that some coffee shops sell - the danger is always that you will burn the bottom of the cookies without sufficiently cooking the middle.  You could try playing with the oven temperature. ** Remember** the crinkles don't show up in the oven - that occurs as the cookie cools on the tray out on the counter. 

Play with the size and level of chewiness that you like.  Finish the dough and do a test run - or 2 or 3, to determine what size of cookie you like, and what the ideal baking time is.