Who’s ready for another special guest with another awesome recipe? And have you made sure to enter the giveaway? You can get more entries every day. 🙂
True story: Early in 2016, I happened across Mist of Midnight by Sandra Byrd. I bought it. I devoured it. In a day. I loooooved every second and hurried to get the next book in the series, Bride of Distant Isle. And these aren’t the first Sandra Byrd books I’ve loved…I first got hooked on her writing with her delicious French Twist series.
So of course I’m thrilled to welcome Sandra today with a recipe for soft ginger molasses cookies. I have every intention of making these myself this very week! I already bought the pearl sugar. Enjoy!
Soft Ginger Molasses Cookies
…from Sandra Byrd
I adore these crunchy, soft, pillowy, chewy cookies. They are perfumed with earthly, mellow ginger which instantly evokes the holiday season, and the pearl sugar scattered across the tops brings snowflakes to mind. They are not difficult to make, either; once baked, they are little bites of Christmas perfection. Do use the ginger syrup: I buy it online, and the pearl sugar, too, but you can make it yourself and it’s easy to do. Everything else should be readily available at your local grocery store!
Cookies
- 1 cup unsalted butter
- 1 cup sugar
- 1/2 cup molasses OR 1/4 cup molasses + 1/4 cup ginger syrup
- 2 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 1/4 teaspoons ground cinnamon
- 1 1/4 teaspoons ground cloves
- 1 teaspoon ground ginger
- 2 large eggs
- 3 1/2 cups King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
- sugar, for coating; pearl sugar; sparkling white (coarse) sugar; or granulated sugar
Ginger syrup
- 4 cups fresh ginger root, unpeeled, cut into 1/8″ to ¼” slices (a food processor makes short work of this task)
- 3 1/2 cups sugar
- 3 1/2 cups water
Directions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F. Lightly grease (or line with parchment) two baking sheets.
- In a large mixing bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until they’re light and fluffy.
- Beat in the molasses (or molasses and ginger syrup), baking soda, salt, and spices.
- Add the eggs, beating well and scraping down the sides of the bowl to make sure everything is incorporated.
- Stir in the flour.
- Scoop the soft dough into 1 ½” balls; a tablespoon cookie scoop works well here.
- Roll them in granulated sugar, coarse sugar, or pearl sugar.
- Space the cookies on the prepared baking sheets, leaving about 2 ½” between them.
- Bake them for 10 minutes. The centers will look soft and puffy; that’s OK.
- Remove the cookies from the oven, and cool them on the pan for 10 minutes before transferring them to a rack to cool completely.
- To make easy, pretty shaped cookies, use a cutter smaller than the cookie to cut a shape from the center of each cookie, while the cookies are still mildly warm. Serve both the original cookies, and the shapes you’ve cut from them.
- To make ginger syrup: In a large, heavy saucepan, bring the ginger, sugar, and water to a boil.
- Boil the mixture for 45 to 60 minutes, until it registers 216°F to 220°F on an instant-read or candy thermometer. The lower temperature will give you a thinner syrup, one that’s easy to stir into drinks; the higher temperature will yield a thicker syrup, better for baking. You can’t tell how thick the syrup will be while it’s still hot; you have to go by its temperature, as it’ll thicken as it cools.
- Remove the pan from the burner and carefully strain the syrup into a non-reactive container. Store in the refrigerator indefinitely. Yield: about 2 1/4 cups syrup.
More details and tips here.
After earning her first rejection at the age of thirteen, bestselling author Sandra Byrd has now published more than forty books.
Sandra’s new series, Daughters of Hampshire, historically sound Gothic romances, launched in 2015 with best-selling Book One: Mist of Midnight. That book earned a coveted Editor’s Choice from the Historical Novel Society. The second book in the series, Bride of a Distant Isle, released in March 2016 and has been selected by Romantic Times as a Top Pick. Her latest nonfiction title, The One Year Home and Garden Devotions, published on October 1, 2015.
Check out her contemporary adult fiction debut, Let Them Eat Cake, which was a Christy Award finalist, as was her first historical novel, To Die For: A Novel of Anne Boleyn. To Die For was also named by Library Journal as a Best Books Pick for 2011 and The Secret Keeper: A Novel of Kateryn Parr, was named a Library Journal Best Books Pick for 2012.
Giveaway Details
One lucky winner is going to receive some suh-sweet prizes including a $25 gift card to Williams-Sonoma, Ghirardelli Holiday Sea Salt Chocolates, One Enchanted Eve (e-novella) by Melissa Tagg, A Royal Christmas Wedding by Rachel Hauck, A Portrait of Emily Price by Katherine Reay, Together at the Table by Hillary Manton Lodge, Mist of Midnight and Home & Garden Devotions by Sandra Byrd.
You can enter daily using the form below! Bonus entry options available.
Comments 12
My favorite soup is broccoli cheese. The recipe? Emeril’s (with lots of extra cheese, of course). For dessert, I love these cookies. I just discovered them last Christmas. They’re SO good!!
http://therecipecritic.com/2013/12/peppermint-meltaways/
Yes, cookies!!! My favorites are chocolate chip with pecans, oatmeal raisin, and Russian tea cookies, yum!
One of my favorite cookie recipes is one I always make at Christmas time. It is a chocolate cookie with chocolate icing and they just melt in your mouth.
I love chocolate chip cookies fresh from the oven!
Sandra’s cookies look yummy!
At Christmas, frosted cutout sugar cookies are still a favorite, but I also discovered a delicious recipe for frosted bars with cranberries. They’ve been a hit whenever I’ve served them.
I love to cook and bake and rarely make the same thing twice. You should see my Pinterest boards. That said, I really don’t have a favorite recipe, they are all my favorites!! Happy Holidays!
Wow, those cookies sound delicious!
These sound amazing! Thanks for the recipe.
I think it’s time to break out my chocolate caramel cookie recipe. Chocolate cookie surrounding a melted Rollo candy. Delicious and to think I haven’t made them in a few years!
Nothing like a warm sugar cookie and a big glass of milk.
One of my favorite baking memories was a mistake. My sister and I found an old cookbook (I think it was from 1920) it had a recipe for a Sweet Potato side dish (casserole type) with brown sugar coated pecans on top. It called for sweet milk. We used sweetened condensed milk. It became dessert then. Later, our grandmother told us sweet milk was what they called buttermilk when she was young. We tried making it with buttermilk but it wasn’t as good. We don’t make it very often but it is good!
I love to make cheesecakes: Peanut Butter Scotcheroo, Reeses’ Peanut Butter Cheesecake, Plain Denver Cheesecake, Chocolate Truffle with raspberry topping, Turtle Cheesecake, and so many more.