Merry Christmas

dianncy left us and took her recipes - here's this one:

Molasses Spice Cookies with Ginger Sugar
This is an easy cookie to make and it is so incredibly delicious

MOLASSES SPICE COOKIES

Preheat oven 375? Prepare cookie sheets by spraying cooking oil onto cookie sheets; set aside.


Ingredients:
1/3 cup sugar + ½ cup of sugar for dipping OR if using ginger sugar use 1/4 cup sugar (instead of 1/2 cup) and 1 teaspoon of ground ginger(See below for Ginger Sugar)
2 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 1/2 teaspoons ground ginger
½ teaspoon ground cloves
¼ teaspoon ground allspice
¼ teaspoon finely ground black pepper
¼ teaspoon salt
12 TABLESPOONS unsalted butter, room temperature (12 TABLESPOONS = 1 ½ sticks of butter)
1/3 cup packed dark or light brown sugar
1 large egg yolk
1 teaspoon vanilla
½ cup light or dark molasses

Step 1
Sift flour, baking soda, spices, and salt in a medium bowl, whisk together until thoroughly combined; set aside.

Step 2
You’ll need an electric mixer
In a large bowl, beat butter with brown sugar and 1/3 cup of sugar, at medium speed until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes.

Step 3
Add large egg yolk and vanilla to butter and sugar mixture and mix with electric mixer until fully mixed into the butter and sugar mixture, mix at low to medium speed, about 20 seconds.

Step 4
Add molasses into mixture, beat until fully mixed into batter, about 20 seconds; scraping bottom and sides of bowl once with a rubber spatula.

Step 5
Add flour mixture and mix with electric mixer until fully combined; about 30 seconds.

Step 6
Give fully mixed batter a final stir by hand (using wooden spoon or rubber spatula) to ensure that no pockets of flour remain at bottom. Dough will be soft.


Step 7
Pour ½ cup of sugar in a bowl – you will be using this to coat balled cookie dough.
OR IF USING GINGER SUGAR
Pour 1/4 cup of sugar and 1 teaspoon of fresh ginger and mix

Step 8
Using a TABLESPOON measure, scoop heaping TABLESPOON of cookie dough and roll it between your palms into a 1 ¼ to 1 ½ ball; drop ball into bowl of sugar and coat ball and place on prepared cookie sheet. Using a fork, make criss cross design on sugar coated cookie dough using fork tines.

Step 9
Cook cookies for 10 ½ minutes (not a second more or less). Cool the cookies on baking sheet for 3 to 5 minutes. Using a metal or plastic spatula, remove cookies from cooled cookie sheet onto a plate or waxed paper.

GINGER SUGAR

• To make your own ginger sugar, just mix 1 teaspoon freshly ground ginger with a quarter cup of granulated sugar, and shake well.

I know ~ pepper in a cookie recipe ~ but it is very needed and you don't taste the pepper it just lends itself to the spice taste ~

I have fun with this recipe too~ after people have tried it for the first time I usually will tell them that there is black pepper in the ingredients and I just love the look on their face ~ "You can't tell" it's fun

I do~ in fact, I was dining with my sister at Sweet Tomatos a while back and I get tired of shaking the pepper shaker on my food so I just simply removed the top and put on my desired amount (screwed the cap back on) and the look on my sister's face was ~ why? It just saved me the time of all that shaking ~ she didn't know I like pepper that much ~ though I don't over load my food with pepper ~ most people don't like pepper the way I do.

And the pepper really enhances this recipe