When I saw a cookie recipe in last week's Culinary SOS column in the Los Angeles Times, I of course wanted to give it a try as soon as possible. The recipe was for molasses cookies, from Milk, described as "thin and rich, so have a big glass of milk at the ready — it's all but impossible to eat just one." It happens that three years ago, I was a little disappointed with another Culinary SOS recipe from Milk, for "ooey-gooey double-chocolate cookies." But I can never resist the call of Culinary SOS.
The recipe is no fuss -- you cream together butter and sugar, add eggs, beat in molasses, and incorporate the dry ingredients (flour, baking soda, cinnamon, ground ginger, salt, and cloves). You can bake the cookies right away, with no need to chill the batter. The recipe instructs you to use 2 tablespoons of batter for each cookie, so I used a #30 scoop. These cookies spread and flatten considerably during baking -- my finished cookies were four inches across and only 1/4 inch high.
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The article mentions that at Milk, the cookies are garnished with a sugar glaze, and I had intended to do the same. I was planning to make a hard glaze from a mixture of King Arthur glazing sugar and water, and to drizzle it over the cookies so they would look like the ones in the photo accompanying the L.A. Times article. However, I ended up baking these cookies late into the night, and by the time I was finished, I was just too exhausted to make the glaze. The recipe says it yields two dozen cookies per batch, and I got 64 from my double batch. But since the cookies were so large, I could only fit six cookies on a cookie sheet, and as I never put more than one tray of cookies in the oven at a time, I could only bake six cookies every 18 minutes. After my three hours and 18 minutes of baking, I just called it a night and left the cookies plain.
These cookies didn't need a glaze, in any case. They baked up perfectly round and uniform. The outer edges of the cookies were crisp, and the centers were superchewy -- the texture is quite special, and I found it to be addictive. The molasses-spice flavor was terrific as well. Even Alexander was a big fan, declaring these cookies to be "very good!," and I couldn't agree more. These cookies are excellent, and I think this will be my go-to spice cookie from now on.
Recipe: "Molasses Cookies" from Milk, recipe available in the January 26, 2012 Los Angeles Times.
Previous Post: "Ooey-Gooey? Phooey!," January 30, 2009.
The recipe is no fuss -- you cream together butter and sugar, add eggs, beat in molasses, and incorporate the dry ingredients (flour, baking soda, cinnamon, ground ginger, salt, and cloves). You can bake the cookies right away, with no need to chill the batter. The recipe instructs you to use 2 tablespoons of batter for each cookie, so I used a #30 scoop. These cookies spread and flatten considerably during baking -- my finished cookies were four inches across and only 1/4 inch high.
.JPG)
These cookies didn't need a glaze, in any case. They baked up perfectly round and uniform. The outer edges of the cookies were crisp, and the centers were superchewy -- the texture is quite special, and I found it to be addictive. The molasses-spice flavor was terrific as well. Even Alexander was a big fan, declaring these cookies to be "very good!," and I couldn't agree more. These cookies are excellent, and I think this will be my go-to spice cookie from now on.
Recipe: "Molasses Cookies" from Milk, recipe available in the January 26, 2012 Los Angeles Times.
Previous Post: "Ooey-Gooey? Phooey!," January 30, 2009.
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