Lassoed and branded: Ginger Molasses Cookies.

Delight unbridled.

Throw off your cowboy spurs, your chaps and your cowboy hat, because the ride is over and the cookies are lassoed and safe behind the gate.

Yes, it's the Christmas cookie round-up time and we're starting with one of my all-time favs. These Ginger-Molasses cookies, thick and chewy with crispy edges, were popular before Starbucks started stocking them in their cookie jars. They were fab during your grandma's time when sugar and spice was everything nice and it wafted from her oven, not the opening of a bag from a grocery store or Starbucks. 

I think the baked goods at Starbucks taste good. Quite good. But I'm afraid of what preservatives are in them- aren't you? I mean, at home a cookie might last for 3 or 4 days in a jar before it's gone too hard or just lost too much of its delight. I'm sure, though, that the cookies in stores and coffee shops have life-extending ingredients. And those preservatives  do exactly what in your body? Okay, okay, I shouldn't wreck your casual sweet sampling when you're out and about Christmas shopping, but I'm thinking that we should bring bake the home-baked. Starting with Ginger Molasses Cookies. 

I've given you lots of tips and tricks in the recipe ingredients and instructions. I know cookies are easy to bake, but they're easy to screw up, too. Good luck, cowgirl, on wrestling these cookies away from your family so you can offer them to someone else! 

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup unsalted butter (no substitutes), room temperature- as long as your kitchen is not hot- the ideal temp is about 65 to 67 degrees farenheit, 18 degrees celsius
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 egg, room temperature!
• 1/4 cup molasses
• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 1/2 teaspoons ground ginger
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 3/4 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/4 teaspoon alspice
• 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• Additional sugar

To Do: 

1. I rip off a large sheet of wax paper and set it on the counter. Above it, I sift the flour, baking soda, spices and salt.
2. I whisk the egg into the molasses in the liquid measuring cup.
3. I cream the butter and the sugar on low speed, scraping twice, not mixing more than is necessary to get a nice creamy, incorporated texture. Too much mixing and you're going to have flat cookies. 
4. I add the egg/molasses mixture into the butter and sugar and beat on low, scraping twice and not mixing more than necessary. 
5. I add the dry ingredients from the wax paper funnel I create, and beat on low, not mixing more than is necessary. 
6. I divide the dough into two portions. I roll each into a log shape that is about 12 inches long and 2.5 inches or so in diameter. 
7. I refrigerate the dough while the oven preheats to 350 degrees farenheit. 
8. Once the dough is a bit firm, but not so firm that I need to saw a knife through it to cut it, I chunk off a piece that's a little over an inch wide. If you weighed this piece, it would weigh about 2 ounces. It looks about 1.5 to 2 tablespoons of dough.
9. In a cereal bowl with about 1/2 cup of sugar in it, I set the dough on one side and flip it over, sanding each side with the lovely granules. 
10. I set the dough onto the cookie sheet (ungreased, but you could line it with parchment paper), and make sure that the dough's shape is sort of circular. I usually make one test cookie to see the "spread" of the cookie. If the end result is too thin (and it will be too crispy for my liking), I put the dough back in the refrigerator for 30 minutes before I try again.
11. Repeat. 
12. Leave at least 2 inches of space between drops of dough. 
13. Bake for 10 minutes. To check, carefully lift the edge of the cookie. You're going for the lightest brown color you can find and then you'll whip them out of the oven and leave them on the cookie sheet to cool. (This will ensure that crispy edge, chewy center sort of cookie!)