Chocolate-Molasses Cookies

By Alison Roman

Chocolate-Molasses Cookies
Con Poulos for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Rebecca Jurkevich.
Total Time
About 40 minutes
Rating
4(1,902)
Comments
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All you need to shape this dead simple dough are your hands (and maybe a helper or two). Decidedly more “grown up” in flavor — both the molasses and cocoa give bitter notes that play off the spiciness of the fresh ginger — the cookies are tiny in size by design to complement their intensity. For rolling, any coarse decorative sugar works, as would Demerara or an unrefined sugar.

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Ingredients

Yield:About 40 cookies
  • ½cup/115 grams unsalted butter (1 stick)
  • 1tablespoon freshly grated ginger (optional)
  • 1½cups/190 grams all-purpose flour
  • ½cup/45 grams cocoa powder
  • 2teaspoons baking soda
  • 1teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • 1teaspoon ground ginger
  • 1teaspoon kosher salt
  • ⅓cup/65 grams granulated sugar
  • ½cup/120 milliliters molasses
  • 1large egg
  • Sanding, Demerara or granulated sugar, for decoration
Ingredient Substitution Guide
Nutritional analysis per serving (40 servings)

62 calories; 3 grams fat; 2 grams saturated fat; 0 grams trans fat; 1 gram monounsaturated fat; 0 grams polyunsaturated fat; 9 grams carbohydrates; 1 gram dietary fiber; 5 grams sugars; 1 gram protein; 67 milligrams sodium

Note: The information shown is Edamam’s estimate based on available ingredients and preparation. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice.

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Preparation

  1. Step 1

    Heat oven to 350 degrees. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.

  2. Step 2

    Melt butter in a small pot over medium heat and add ginger, if using. Remove from heat and let sit a few minutes while you prepare everything else.

  3. Step 3

    In a large bowl, whisk flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, cinnamon, ground ginger and salt.

  4. Step 4

    In a medium bowl, whisk together sugar, molasses, egg and ginger butter. Using a spatula, slowly mix into dry ingredients, mixing until no dry spots remain.

  5. Step 5

    Using your hands, roll small balls of dough about the size of a quarter (dough will be soft — if it is too soft for you to handle, pop into the fridge for a few minutes to firm up). Roll the balls in the sanding sugar and place on the prepared baking sheets about 1-inch apart.

  6. Step 6

    Bake until just puffed and baked through, 6 to 8 minutes. Let cool completely before eating.

Tip
  • Cookies can be baked 2 days ahead, stored wrapped tightly at room temperature.

Ratings

4 out of 5
1,902 user ratings
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Comments

Debi Simons

Why oh why do people have you melt butter in a pot on the stove? Just put the butter into the (microwave-safe) mixing bowl you're going to use for the rest of the wet ingredients and do 1 1/2 minutes on 50% power to melt your butter--then check, as you may need 15-30 seconds more. Let the butter cool a bit while you mix up the dry ingredients, then proceed with the recipe, just adding the wet ingredients to the butter. This technique saves you a dirty pot, and all of your butter gets used.

Jean Sramek

The two forms of ginger will complement each other. I'd even go a step further and add finely chopped candied ginger.

Rdowning

Alison Roman mentions fresh ginger in the description but the recipe calls for ground ginger. Any thoughts?

Tom

This recipe has promise. However, I've never seen another recipe with 2 cups of flour (here actually 25% cocoa) that calls for 2 teaspoons of baking soda. The baking soda flavor dominates an otherwise pleasing combination in the final result. I'd suggest about 1/2 teaspoon instead. This would conform to a half recipe of the Ginger-Molasses Cookies (also from the Times Cooking) which I suspect is the original inspiration of this one.

A Hardin

Such mixed reviews on these I almost didn't make them, but they are good! I used kosher salt and unsalted butter (doing otherwise would surely have saltier results), measured dry ingredients by weight, grated the fresh ginger very fine, and was generous with cinnamon and ground ginger. If you've cooked with molasses you know NOT to use "blackstrap". Refrigerated the dough overnight for my own convenience, portioned out the dough at 15 grams per cookie and rolled in raw cane granulated sugar.

Helen Beum

Just made these and we love them. Next time I might add a bit of espresso powder as someone else suggested. I had to cool the dough for about 45 minutes in order to roll it into balls. Skipped the sanding sugar as we don’t like it on cookies. I used Dutch cocoa and Irish butter. The cookies flattened out after cooling but they tasted great - especially with coffee and tea.

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