An open letter to the person who put April into hyperdrive: Please cease and desist. Between the end of my students? forensics season, prom-sponsoring duties and now having to rearrange my lesson plans since our school board cut five days off our school year, I feel like my days are on fast forward.
That?s why I decided it was time for cookies. In particular, it was time for molasses cookies.
Not only is molasses a nice metaphor for slowing down, but molasses cookies also happen to be my favorite kind. They?re my cookie weakness, and they were a great stress reliever and a nice way to just take a break from all the craziness around me.
This recipe came from ?bon appetit? magazine. You can find the original at http://www.bon?appe?tit.com/recipe/chewy-molasses-cookies. I doubled the spices in my version.
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Chewy Molasses Cookies
Ingredients
2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
3 teaspoons cinnamon
2 teaspoons ginger
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 large egg
1/2 cup butter, melted
1/3 cup sugar (plus more for rolling)
1/3 cup molasses
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
Directions
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Combine all the ingredients in a large mixing bowl and mix until it is well-combined.
Scoop the dough with a tablespoon and roll into balls. (My dough was super-sticky, so this wasn?t an easy step, but tossing the dough into the sugar made it easier to roll. I also refrigerated some of my dough and made another batch later. The refrigerated dough rolled much easier.)
Place some sugar into a small bowl and roll the balls in the sugar. Place them about two inches apart on a cookie sheet. Go ahead and fill two cookie sheets; you?ll bake two at a time.
Bake the cookies for 8 to 10 minutes, rotating the sheets about halfway through baking.
Remove the cookies from the oven and place in a sealed container to keep them soft.
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I demolished these pretty quickly. It was a good thing I refrigerated some of the dough for a later batch so I could share them with others.
April is still speeding by, with May quickly approaching, but at least these molasses cookies gave me a chance to slow down, if only for just a moment.
When not helping husband Joey with newspaper work, Lindsey teaches speech, debate and forensics at Haven High School. She can be reached at lindseyclarion@gmail.com.
