Soft Molasses Cookies and Crunchy Jumble Cookies
Dear friends,
I mentioned in a previous post that had jotted down some vintage family recipes from my second cousin Jean’s hand-written cookbook. I wanted to make her grandmother Amelia Davis’s soft molasses cookies and crunchy jumble cookies to bring along to the Hess family reunion in Pennsylvania this past weekend. Jean said her daughter Mary one first prize with these at a baking competition. I’m not surprised!
On Friday afternoon, I made several
dozen soft molasses cookies (a triple batch), and then on Saturday I made a few
dozen crunchy jumble cookies (one batch). They turned out quite well, I must say,
despite several that burned on the bottom.
Since my mother passed away last summer, I had a bittersweet time baking in her kitchen without her. I had organized all of the cupboards and drawers last summer while she was in the hospital, so I knew where most everything should be, but I still couldn’t find the second beater to the hand mixer. Of course, I had to buy a lot of the staple ingredients since my father doesn’t bake and much of what was in the cupboards has expired.
Since my mother passed away last summer, I had a bittersweet time baking in her kitchen without her. I had organized all of the cupboards and drawers last summer while she was in the hospital, so I knew where most everything should be, but I still couldn’t find the second beater to the hand mixer. Of course, I had to buy a lot of the staple ingredients since my father doesn’t bake and much of what was in the cupboards has expired.
Though emotionally difficult,
I’m glad I took the effort to do this.
They were a big hit at the reunion, and many of my relatives wanted the
recipe. Most of all, it was a way to
connect with my family and my heritage, and that is priceless.
Soft Molasses Cookies
Ingredients:
1 stick butter, softened
½ cup Crisco
1 ½ cup sugar
½ cup molasses
2 eggs
4 cups all purpose flour
½ tsp. salt
2 ¼ tsp. baking soda
1 ¼ tsp. ginger
1 ½ tsp. cloves
1 ½ tsp. cinnamon
Instructions:
Cream the butter, Crisco, and
sugar together. Add in the molasses and
eggs. Combine the dry ingredients
thoroughly and add to the wet ingredients.
Roll large (2” diameter) balls in sugar and place on cookie sheets. Bake at 350 for 10-12 minutes.
Crunchy Jumble Cookies
1 cup softened butter
2 cups sugar
2 tsp. vanilla
2 eggs
2 ½ cups flour
½ tsp. salt
1 tsp. soda
4 cups Rice Krispies cereal
1 cup chocolate chips
Instructions:
Cream the butter and sugar
together. Mix in vanilla and eggs. Mix the flour, salt, and soda together and
add to the wet ingredients. Then stir in
the Rice Krispies and the chocolate chips.
Form into balls on cookie sheets and bake at 350 until golden brown,
about 10-12 minutes.
A word about photo editing!
The lighting in mom's kitchen was a little weird when I snapped the photo on the left with my iPod. After I posted this recipe, my niece told me the cookies in it looked green and unappetizing. So, I just fixed it using the "warmify" option on Picasa to make them look more like they really do. :-) See the difference?
A word about photo editing!
The lighting in mom's kitchen was a little weird when I snapped the photo on the left with my iPod. After I posted this recipe, my niece told me the cookies in it looked green and unappetizing. So, I just fixed it using the "warmify" option on Picasa to make them look more like they really do. :-) See the difference?
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