Old Fashioned Molasses Cookies Recipe (2024)

FAQs

Why are my molasses cookies so hard? ›

Bake soft molasses cookies on a cookie sheet for 8-10 minutes. It's very important to not over bake the cookies or they will be hard and dry instead of soft and chewy. To check for doneness, open oven and gently push the side of a cookie with your finger or utensil.

“Light molasses is the sweetest and mildest out of the bunch because it is made from the first boiling cycle,” she said. “I like to use this type of molasses because it adds moisture to cookies, resulting in a soft and chewy texture.”

Molasses cookies have that nice crackly top for a few reasons: the molasses makes them spread and the sugar coating dries out the surface so that when they spread, they crack instead of puff.

While light and dark molasses can be used fairly interchangeably, blackstrap molasses can overpower your baking with off-putting flavors. Until you're familiar with it, look for recipes that specifically call for blackstrap molasses.

Doubling up on molasses softened the cookies significantly.

Molasses is a thick, goopy ingredient, so it wasn't a surprise that my dough came out on the stickier end of the texture spectrum when I used too much molasses.

Baking cookies quickly in a hot oven – at 375 degrees F as opposed to a lower temperature – will make for soft results. They'll bake fast instead of sitting and drying out in the oven's hot air. Ever so slightly underbaking your cookies will give you softer results than cooking them the full amount the recipe says.

Grandma's Molasses is made of the finest quality unsulfured liquid of sun-ripened sugarcane. After the sugarcane is cut and crushed, the liquids are extracted and boiled.

If green, unripe sugarcane is used, it is treated with sulfur dioxide first to preserve it. It can leave a chemical taste in the mouth, so we recommend looking for unsulfured molasses whenever possible.

Unsulphured molasses can be light, dark or blackstrap, as long as it hasn't been treated with sulphur dioxide. Most commercially produced molasses is unsulphured.

Are gingerbread cookies the same as molasses cookies? ›

Molasses cookies are the softer, chewier cousin of my gingerbread cookies. They're a great and easy-to-make cookie option for your holiday cookie tray and with their deep sparkly crackles they look beautiful arranged beside sugar cookies and peanut butter blossoms.

OVEN IS TOO HOT

Oven temperatures are a crucial factor in baking. If your cookies consistently come out flat, you may have selected the wrong baking temperature. If you bake cookies using too much heat, the fats in the dough begin to melt before the other ingredients can cook together and form your cookie's rise.

Blackstrap molasses has a lead warning from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) because the processing of molasses infrequently involves using a direct flame with coals that may contain a high amount of the caustic substance potash. The soil in which the sugar cane grows may also contain lead.

After the end of World War I, refined sugar prices dropped drastically resulting in the migration of consumers from molasses to white sugar crystals.

Potential Risks of Blackstrap Molasses

Although lower in sugar and higher in nutrients than some sweeteners, blackstrap molasses can still raise your blood sugar. It should be used in moderation, especially for people with diabetes.

To keep your cookies soft and chewy, it's important to store them properly. The best way to store cookies is in an airtight container at room temperature. Avoid storing them in the fridge or freezer, as this can cause them to become hard and dry.

The bread/apple trick

Here's a baker's trick you'll find in our new Monster Cookies recipe: Adding a piece of fresh white bread to the storage container will keep cookies from becoming hard or stale.

The science is simple: According to the flour authorities over at Bob's Red Mill, cornstarch can help “soften the rigid proteins of the flour, resulting in a light and chewy dessert.” “The cornstarch complements the flour in absorbing the liquids, but won't develop gluten structure like the flour will,” stresses ...

(2016) reported that hardness of the cookies is increased by the replacement of wheat flour with water chestnut flour. Further, Hoseney and Rogers (1994) stated that hardness of the cookies is caused by the interaction of proteins and starch by hydrogen bonding.