This recipe for soft and chewy molasses cookies comes from the “You Asked for It” section of Gourmet’s November 1995 issue. A reader requested the recipe after having tasted the cookies at Mocha Molly’s Coffee Saloon in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, which closed in 2006. The old-fashioned favorite has been taking Epi readers back ever since. The addition of vegetable shortening keeps the cookies moist and tender for days—a good quality in any holiday cookie—while butter and a trio of spices (ground cinnamon, cloves, and ginger) bolster the rich molasses flavor.
You could use a stand mixer or hand mixer to bring the cookie dough together, but as long as you remember to soften your butter to room temperature, you can easily make them with just a wooden spoon and a mixing bowl. The recipe instructs you to roll the dough balls in sugar before baking to give the finished cookies a sparkly sheen. But we also love to swap the finishing sugar out for demerara or turbinado, which retain more molasses and have larger crystals than regular granulated sugar, and will bring extra flavor plus a bit of crunch to contrast the soft molasses cookie.
For more of our favorite Christmas cookies, check out our classic iced sugar cookies or gingerbread cookies. Or if you’re looking for ease, try our recipe for 3-Ingredient Peanut Butter Cookies.
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