Old Fashioned Molasses Cookies Recipe (2024)

FAQs

Why are my molasses cookies so hard? ›

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. You are looking for the edges to stay firm and the middle to look soft but not to sink inwards.

Go for an unsulphured or dark molasses, also sold as “robust” molasses. Blackstrap molasses can be quite intense—I don't bake with it too often. I'm not working with any of these companies, but I prefer Grandma's, Brer Rabbit, or Wholesome brands.

Why don't my molasses cookies crack? Molasses cookie dough won't have those signature cracks on top if the dough is too wet. The cracks happen when the surface of the dough dries up. Rolling in sugar really helps this because the sugar binds the moisture and dries out the dough.

Cookies made with butter are usually crispier than chewy cookies made with shortening, but the flavor is richer with butter. So a one-to-one butter swap will work great if you need a shortening substitute for cookies. In cakes and breads, the substitution is rarely noticeable when using shortening vs. butter.

Doubling up on molasses softened the cookies significantly.

Molasses is also extremely dark in color, so this batch of cookies turned out to be a deep brown.

Putting a slice of fresh white bread in the container with the cookies will help the cookies stay soft: fresh bread is moist, and that slice will give up its moisture for the greater good: keeping the cookies from drying out. We recommend white bread so that no flavor is transferred to the cookies.

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.

As far as I can find, molasses is about 70% sugar and high in moisture, while blackstrap is 45% sugar, low in moisture, dense, bitter and salty.” Remember to use blackstrap only when a recipe calls for the ingredient, such as with baked beans. But don't sub in the sweetener for light or dark molasses.

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.

OVEN IS TOO HOT

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.

Why is my molasses cookie dough so sticky? ›

When cookie dough is too sticky, you may have an imbalance of wet and dry ingredients. You can fix this by adding a teaspoon of flour or cornstarch at a time until your dough is just how you want. The added flour or cornstarch will absorb the excess liquid and reduce the dough's overall stickiness.

Cookies Made with Butter vs Shortening

The butter cookie provides better flavor and a crispier exterior with browning around edges and a chewy interior; the shortening cookie spreads less, holding its shape better while baking.

Basically, cookies made with butter spread more and are flatter and crisper if baked long enough. However, they are more flavorful than cookies made with shortening. Cookies made with shortening bake up taller and are more tender, but aren't as flavorful.

Molasses makes these cookies from Dorie Greenspan delightfully chewy, so you'll want to replace it with another liquid sweetener who could accomplish a similar feat. Try honey or sorghum, a combo of dark corn syrup and brown sugar, or a combo of dark corn syrup and maple syrup.

Cookies become hard when the moisture in them evaporates. This can be caused by leaving them out in the air for too long, baking them for too long, or storing them improperly. The lack of moisture makes the cookies hard and dry, which makes them difficult to enjoy.

According to The Kitchn, this occurs when you over-mix the dough. Mixing the dough naturally causes gluten to develop in the flour, and while you do need a good amount of gluten to give your cookies structure, too much of it will result in hard cookies.

At lower baking temperature, hardness of cookie increased as the baking time was decreased below 14 min. Hardness also increased significantly with increase in water content at all levels of sugar concentration in the formula.

Too much gluten yields tough cookies. To prevent over-mixing, stop blending ingredients as soon as the streaks of flour are no longer visible (via The Kitchn).