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When the weather gets cooler our thoughts turn to cozy sweaters, warming spices, and a healthy obsession with baking yummy treats. One of those old fashioned baked treats that doesn’t get nearly enough attention if you ask me are molasses cookies. In this recipe for orange spice cookies thick and rich molasses are combined with orange and cinnamon for a truly special cookie that will make you feel cozy, no matter what time of year you bake them.
To start making this recipe you’ll need to combine your dry ingredients, including a spice blend of cinnamon, ginger, cloves, and allspice.
The next step is to work on the wet ingredients. The base of these cookies relies on molasses and you can’t really substitute honey or Karo syrup and expect the same results.
Molasses is the byproduct of sugar cane refinement and this magic ingredient is what gives rum its dark color and sweet flavor. Even sorghum, an alternative to molasses used in the South, doesn’t have the quite same flavor profile.
To the molasses you add orange and vanilla extracts, as well as brown sugar and egg. Add the dry ingredients in to the wet and you’ll end up with a stick dough. Chill the dough ins the refrigerator for 1-2 hours so that it can harden up. Skipping this step could result in flat or burned cookies that melt too quickly in the oven, so making sure they’re cold is imperative here.
Once they’ve been chilled make golf ball sized balls and roll each one in granulated sugar before placing them on parchment-lined baking sheets 2 inches apart.
These cookies come out soft on the inside and wonderfully sugared on the outside. In addition to being utterly delicious with the combination of citrus and spices, these cookies will make your home smell divine. For a spice cookie with a little something extra these cookies take the cake.
Orange Spice Cookies
Diet: Vegetarian
Ingredients
- 3 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 2 Tbsp orange zest (about 1 orange’s worth)
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1 tsp ground ginger
- 1/8 tsp ground cloves
- 1/4 tsp allspice
- 1 cup butter, softened
- 1 cup brown sugar
- 1 egg
- 1/2 cup molasses
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 tsp orange extract
- sugar for rolling
Preparation
- Combine flour, baking soda, orange zest, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, and allspice in a medium bowl. Set aside.
- In a large bowl cream together butter and brown sugar. Add in eggs, molasses, and extracts and stir well. Mix dry ingredients into the wet ingredients until uniform in color. Chill dough for 1-2 hours.
- Preheat oven to 375˚F. Use a small scoop or two spoons to dish out dough into golf-ball sizes chunks. Roll quickly between palms to smooth out edges. Pour granulated sugar into a shallow bowl or flat saucer. Roll cookies in sugar and place on lined baking sheets about 2 inches apart.
- Bake for 8-12 minutes. Allow to cool for 5 minutes before transferring to wire racks to cool completely.
Recipe adapted from Crosby’s.