Molasses cookies

Ginger, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, cardamom - if I could create a royal family of spices these lucky five would reign supreme, with cinnamon as King and cardamom as Queen - the other three; their loving, complimentary children.

What I love most about this brood is not only their talent to turn every sweet into something beyond comforting, exciting, enticing and drool-worthy, but their ability to do the same to the savoury side. Now, I don't eat meat any more (not since my Play School watching days, and right before my X-files ones started), but my husband does, and whenever I cook him up some ginger chicken, or pork with cloves, even cinnamon dusted lamb, it more than often results in two thumbs up and a very, very dirty face (fingers often included). Plus, their heady, fragrant aromas and pretty neutral shades also score points (as well as their eligibility as possible alternative children's names - Ginger was my favourite cast-away). The gathering of one or more of these spices are found very frequently in Christmas cooking, after all, it's only right the the Royal Spice family be the stars of that wonderful time of year.

Whenever I strike gold with a recipe that involves more than two of these tasty family members, it goes straight into my recipe pile, nudged towards the top. I am oh so glad freakishly happy I found this recipe as it means my search for a soft, crispy, gingery, Christmas-y spice cookie is finally over. Now, onto my next cookie hunt; the notoriously hard-to-get-right Chocolate Chip Cookie.

ease: 5/5.
prep time: 14mins.
cooking time: 23mins for 3 rounds of baking.
total: 37mins.

taste: 4.5/5. Thanks to these bad boys I now have a cookie-addiction. My husband had to stage an intervention last night as I ate my fourth consecutive cookie in 3minutes flat.
They are my dream texture - a slightly crispy outer layer revealing cakey crumbs leading to a glorious, dense, chewy, moist centre. The spices give it a Christmas feel making it the perfect night-cap cookie. Everything is perfectly balanced - no spice tries to best another and although the molasses is the leader, it is clearly a team effort with no one taking the praise alone. It is a sweet cookie but not enough to warrant washing it down with water straight away.
I used a touch less brown sugar and they were still sweet (I also skipped the icing).
I'm not sure what 3/8 of a cup looks like so I used 1/3 cup - and it was just right, any more and it would have been too strong a molasses flavour for me.
I experimented a little with cooking times and I found 5mins50seconds yielded my favourite cookie - firmer than the 5minute and moister than the 6min05seconds.

would I make it again: Yes - when I am clean-and-cookie-free for at least two weeks.

recipe: Molasses Cookies