Soft Molasses Cookies/Julia

Old-school molasses cookies came in two camps: thin and crisp like ginger snaps, or pillow-soft like cake. This recipe sits firmly in the second. Sour cream is the secret weapon, its acid reacts with the baking soda for serious lift, and its fat keeps the crumb tender even days after baking.

The original recipe note about ‘cream that has been soured rather than commercial sour cream’ is a relic of when home cooks soured fresh cream with vinegar or lemon juice. Modern sour cream works fine and gives consistent results.

The roll-and-cut method is what distinguishes these from drop cookies. A half-inch thickness is the sweet spot, thinner cookies dry out, thicker ones don’t bake through evenly. Chill the dough hard before rolling, soft molasses dough sticks ferociously to the rolling pin and counter.

Pro Tips

• Use unsulphured molasses, blackstrap molasses tastes harsh and bitter in cookies. Grandma’s or similar mid-grade molasses is ideal.
• Chill the dough at least 2 hours, longer is better. Warm dough spreads, oozes, and produces flat cookies.
• Flour the rolling pin and counter generously but tap excess flour off cut cookies before baking, too much flour leaves a dusty white film on the bottom.
• Pull cookies when the edges are set but the centers still look slightly underdone. Residual heat finishes them and keeps them soft.
• Store with a piece of bread in the cookie tin, the bread keeps the cookies pillowy by donating moisture.

Variations

• Add a teaspoon of cinnamon and a pinch of cloves for a warmer, more gingerbread-leaning spice profile.
• Sprinkle the cut cookies with coarse sanding sugar before baking for sparkle and crunch.
• Sandwich two cookies with cream cheese frosting between them for a soft molasses sandwich cookie.