Ginger Molasses Cookies

Firstly, I have to apologize. I haven't posted anything in a long time-- but I'll admit, I've been busy baking up a new baby girl. We welcome Harper Jamie into the world Halloween 2009 :) at our own home (I had a planned home birth).
I've got my birth story posted on my personal blog: The Crunchy, Contrary Yank
I'll resist the urge to spam this blog with pictures of my beautiful baby girl (and her big sister of course).

Now, to the good stuff that you all actually care about-- baked goods!


Ginger Molasses Cookies
adapted from bakingbites.com
These are everything that ginger cookies should be -- soft, chewy, cracked, spicy... and delicious with a hot cuppa. Not the best picture I've ever taken, but I'm pretty sure you can see that delicious combination of sugars crystallized on the outside of that perfectly cracked cookie. These taste of Christmas. And, here in Ireland, the weather has turned and now we face 6 months or so of cold, wet weather. To beat this, I need delicious, soul warming food to keep my spirits up.

Ingredients
1/4 cup shortening (you can omit this and use 1/4 cup butter (thats 1/2 cups total) instead, but they just don't crack as well.
1/4 cup butter
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup molasses
2 tbsp honey
1/4-1/2 tsp vanilla (okay, I admit, its not in the original recipe but I just can't make cookies without a little touch of vanilla. I didn't measure, like I said, I just added "a touch" ;) )
1 large egg (I used 2 medium sized eggs)
2 1/3 cup all purpose flour
2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp ginger
1 tsp cinnamon (I love cinnamon so I'm always generous here)
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp ground cardamon
1/2 tsp ground black pepper (I know, its strange, but they taste great!)
1/2 tsp salt

spare sugar, for rolling in (I used white sugar, demerera sugar, and a sparkly clear sugar sprinkle I have for cake decorating-- you can just use all white sugar, but adding in a coarse sugar with it just makes them look cool)

Directions
Preheat your oven to 175C/350F-- I think this is really important for these cookies.

Cream together butter (and shortening) and sugar.
Add in molasses, honey, vanilla, and egg(s). Beat until creamy.
Sift together flour, baking soda, spices, and salt.
Add flour to butter mixture, slowly.

Roll your dough into 1 inch sized balls, and then roll them in your bowl of mixed sugars. Place on greased baking sheet (I use some baking/parchment paper).

Bake for 10 minutes, then keep an eye on them. I like soft and chewy cookies, so I take them out at 10 minutes. If you leave them in a few extra minutes they will likely go crunchy-- I always do half of them a little over cooked because Cormac likes crunchy cookies (bah!).

Let the cool on the sheet for a few minutes before moving to a cooling rack.
As always, shove several in your mouth and enjoy. These are particular good with a cup of coffee. nom nom.

You can get about 3 dozen cookies out of this recipe.