Molasses Cutout Cookies





Soft molasses cookies

I was intrigued when I saw this cookie recipe on Sprinkle Bakes' blog.  I love molasses cookies and thought they would make a nice change from the traditional Christmas sugar cookies with royal icing. Especially because of the work involved in icing cookies, the price of meringue powder these days, and the fact that my family just isn't that into the taste of decorated cookies. 

I also wanted a chance to use my mom's cookie cutters that I inherited. These 1970's vintage impression cutters are so cute and I haven't had much success with them before. I thought this recipe might do the trick, based on the blog photos.

Since there's only the 3 of us and I wasn't gifting any cookies, I decided to make only half the recipe.  It turned out to be very difficult to use the impression cutters because the dough is pretty soft and the cutters are very detailed, making it virtually impossible to release the cookies. I had to scrap the Santa Claus and only made two Christmas trees before I realized I had to switch to other cutters. I do have as well, a set of  "suit of cards" cutters from Mom, which includes a star with scalloped edges, and I decided to use those. Although the back of the cutters is covered, there is a little handle and the part of the dough under the handle is exposed. Previously I've released the dough from those cutters by working it out of the cutter through that opening using a toothpick. But on this occasion, I found that just by gently shaking the cutter the dough does release. You have to make sure the edges of the cutter are clean of dough and floured. This did work pretty well, although by now the dough was getting kind of soft.

Fo a little variation, I decided to also make some "fox" cookies using my this awesome cookie stamp from the German brand Birkmann. It's so true that when something is made in Germany it is usually of such great quality!  This cookie stamp does such a great job making an impression on all kinds of dough and releases so easily. You can pop off the silicone stamp from the wooden handle to clean it afterwards and also I think it was meant to be used with different stamps you can replace and put on the wooden handle. This system doesn't seem to be sold anymore and I am sorry about it and wish I'd bought more silicone stamps to use with the handle!  After I made the fox cookies, R called me to look at a real live fox running in the snow in our front yard. What are the odds of that!  Mr. Fox approved of the cookies!

The cookies baked for 11 minutes.

I froze the cookies before baking but in spite of that they didn't hold their impression very well.  So, this is not the best recipe for stamped cookies. Additionally, I find the molasses taste to be too subtle. They simply don't taste like molasses cookies to me. The recipe calls for more honey than molasses and that is the taste that stands out.  

The best part of these cookies, compared to sugar cookies, is how they stay soft. It's just a better tasting cookie that sugar cookies with royal icing. But I think I'll continue to look for a spiced or molasses cookie recipe with a better taste, and find a springerle recipe for making stamped cookies. You can't have it all at once, I guess, when it comes to cookies!


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