Soft Ginger Molasses Cookies

  Black Friday has always been something that puzzled me. I mean, you camp out in front of your favorite stores to push 'n shove other people to get the best deals only hours after being thankful for everything you have. I participated in Black Friday for the first time except I skipped the chance of getting trampled by shopping online. Later on my mom and I went Black Friday shopping to stores that most people forget about like Home Depot and the Pet Store {where I got a hamster} before going to Ulta and Dick's which were still crowded at 3pm.

  On Saturday our new living room furniture and 2 dressers for my room arrived early which meant all weekend I was organizing my room, choosing what clothes and books to donate, and completely forgot about my blog. Since the night before Thanksgiving I haven't really cooked except dinners which weren't anything to blog about and made zero desserts. I thought about sharing another recipe for sugared nuts that I made for Thanksgiving that were a favorite, but I remember how good these cookies were and thought I should share this recipe first. These cookies are similar my peanut butter crinkle cookies because you roll the dough balls in sugar before cooking and they have the same soft center yet slightly crunchy edges.

    For the church bake sale, I decided to make ginger molasses cookies from My Baking Addiction. I have to admit that I've only eaten ginger cookies a few times and those came from out of the Christmas themed cookie tins you get at the grocery store. When I sampled a small piece of the dough, the molasses and spices were there, but when I tasted a cooled cookie the flavors were mild and tasted more like a brown sugar cookie. Don't get me wrong these cookies were delicious, but I was expecting more spice. *I then looked up the other cookie recipe I thought about using and noticed that they were the same recipe except Georgia from The Comfort of Cooking used ground clove instead of pumpkin pie spice which would give more of a bite.

 The next morning at church I noticed that I had a few extra cookies so I split one with my mom and gave another to a friend and to my surprise the flavors were bolder than the night before. I will be making these again, but I might add a pinch of ground cloves next time to give a little more spice. I have never participated in a cookie exchange, but this would be a great recipe to make. These are my new favorite "chocolate free" cookie recipe!

Soft Ginger Cookies

Recipe: My Baking Addiction

yields: 3 1/2 cookies

2 1/4 cup all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
2 tsp pumpkin pie spice*
3/4 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground cloves
3/4 cup {1 1/2 sticks} butter, softened
1 cup white sugar
1 egg, room temperature
1 Tbsp water
1/4 cup molasses

4 Tbsp white sugar, for rolling

Notes:
-For a big batch like this I line 2 cookie pans with parchment, but only cook 1 pan at a time so when the first  batch is done I can have another pan baking so the first cookie sheet cools completely before using it again.
-I used a small ice cream scoop to measure out the dough which got me a little over 3 dozen cookies, but you can just measure out bigger pieces to get 24 cookies.

1. Preheat oven to 350F & line a baking sheet with parchment.
2. In a medium bowl, sift or whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt, ginger, cinnamon, and pumpkin pie spice. Set aside.
3. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until fluffy. Stir in the eggs, water, and molasses. Slowly mix the dry ingredients into the wet mixture. **I like to chill all cookie dough before baking it which is  good for many reasons like if your butter was too soft when you made the dough and usually makes for a puffier cookie when baked.
4. Using a small ice cream scoop, measure out the dough before rolling in the sugar.Place the cookies on the prepared cookie pan 2" apart, flattening slightly with your fingers.
5. Bake for 8-10 minutes or until golden.  Allow the cookies to cool on the pan for 5 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack. Store in an air-tight container.