My mom’s cousin from Texas commented on my recent use of molasses: “A staple in every Hoosier’s kitchen!” On that note, I hereby declare a week of molasses recipe-sharing at cozywalls.com. These cookies come by way of my Great-Grandmother’s Sister-in-Law, Aunt Velma. Though I never knew her, I cannot mistake the smell of these cookies baking in the oven: the combination of cloves and molasses warms the soul.

When I was little, my mom would let me roll the dough balls in a bowl of sugar before placing them on the cookie sheet. For this batch I used some pretty big sparkle sugar, and the added crunch and shimmer was a delightful result (don’t be fooled by the crunch though, these cookies are also soft-middled). Usually paired with a glass of milk or mug of tea, this week at the store there was a bargain on black cherry gelato. Together with that blackstrap molasses cookie, the gelato was transformed into a black forest trifle of molasses sorts. I like to think of it as Blackstrap Forest.

Aunt Velma’s Molasses Cookies
Preheat Oven to 375-degrees

Mix together:
3/4 cups shortening
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 egg
1/4 cup molasses
1.5 teaspoons baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cloves
1 teaspoon ginger
1 teaspoon cinnamon
about 2 cups flour

Roll in balls “the size of walnuts” and dip in sugar. Bake 8-10 minutes.

A la mode.  That’s right, it’s like a root beer float in a bowl minus the extra burps.  After a few failed attempts at creating a root beer cookie suitable for a hand-held ice cream sandwich, I revisited an old family recipe as home base. My great-grandmother’s Brown Sugar Cookies* are subtly spicy and soft cookies, some of the coziest I know. I returned to my mom’s old recipe keeper for the directions (a snapshot of my cookie-loving childhood), then made a Root Beer Buttercream frosting for the tops. Looking at the photos I took, these are more root beer perches than floats, but you get the idea. Ice cream on top or bottom: tasty pairing either way.

Root Beer Buttercream
Heat up 1/4 C Root Beer – great time to use flat pop.
(for exceptional root beer intensity, reduce a can on the stovetop for ~15 min.)
Mix in 2 T brown sugar till it dissolves.
Add 2 T butter and stir until melted.
Whisk in confectioner’s sugar until you reach desired consistency.

*You may have the cookie recipe if you join my family or offer a suitable exchange. In my mom’s words, “you’re not putting that recipe on the internet, are you?!”