Molasses Cookies

When I started school, my regular participation in our family coffee breaks ended.  Thankfully Gram and I started our own after school snack time.  My favorite memory of Molasses Cookies is introducing them to the girl who would become my long-time best friend on our first day of Kindergarten.   When school ended that first day, my future BF was waiting for her Mom to come pick her up.  At five years old I knew that some of my Gram's cookies and a glass of milk was far preferable to waiting around the school yard for your ride, so I gathered her up and we walked the three blocks to Gram's.  Molasses Cookies were in the cookie jar that day.  Thankfully it was small town so it didn't take long for my new best friend's mom to find her!

Most people would probably call these Oatmeal Raisin Cookies, our family has always called them Molasses Cookies.   The recipe came from the Home Ec. class that either my Uncle or my Dad would have taken in the 1950's.  

Having made this cookie before, I knew there were a few experiments I wanted to make.  Gram's version was soft and cakey but my preparation using the recipe as written has always resulted in a dense chewy cookie - delicious but not the cookie I was hoping for.

In an effort to get closer to Gram's Molasses Cookie, I did a bit of research on how to achieve a more cakey style of cookie.  I'd assumed that Gram just added flour, maybe an egg.  It's my belief she added flour to almost all of her cookies.  I found a lot of information out there, apparently there a number of ways to achieve this.  I found a great link to an episode of Food Network's Good Eats where Alton Brown demonstrates the science behind crispy, chewy, and cakey cookies.  Alton is always entertaining and informative, check it out here.

I decided I would experiment in two ways - the type of cookie sheet I used and by adding flour.  Using a dark sheet required some modifications to the preparation - I lowered the oven temperature from 400 degrees to 350, and reduced the cooking time from 14 minutes to 9.  I found that the darker cookie sheet did result in less "spread" of the cookie, but the cookie was not noticablely cakier, just denser.  Another problem with using the dark sheet was that the bottoms got too brown for my liking even when placing the sheet on the upper oven rack when baking.

On to my second modification - adding flour.  I started adding by 1/4 cup at a time and started to see the cookie I was shooting for.  Ultimately I ended up adding an additional full cup of flour to achieve the consistency I remembered Gram's being.  Thankfully all iterations tasted just fine!

MOLASSES COOKIES
1 C shortening
2 C sugar
3 eggs
3/4 C molasses
3 - 4 C flour
2 tsp soda
2 tsp salt
2 tsp cinnamon
4 C oatmeal
2 C raisins

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Cream sugar and shortening with handheld or stand mixer until light and fluffy.  Add eggs one at a time until fully incorporated.  Whisk together dry ingredients including oatmeal in large bowl.  Slowly add flour mixture to shortening mixture until well mixed.  Stir in raisins.  Using 1" scoop, place dough on parchment lined cookie sheets.  Bake for 12 - 15 minutes.

Using the dark sheet with and without parchment

The end result after adding 3/4 Cup flour - almost there!

From L to R - (1) Recipe as Written (2) Using Dark Sheet
(3) With Additional 1/2 C Flour (4) With Additional 1 C Flour 

Bottoms of Cookies