The Story Behind Molasses Sugar Cookies

When I was little, every Christmas night my family would have what we called our “Christmas Buffet”. It was complete with every type of salad that needs to have mayonnaise added to it. The highlight, however, was the cookie tray that my grandmother would bring. It was complete with sugar cookies, buttercrunch, ritz peanut butter crackers, and these molasses sugar cookies.

To be honest, I never reached for the molasses sugar cookies. I didn’t care for them as a child. However, as an adult, I find them to be DELICIOUS. So much so, that I had a friend bring me a big bottle of molasses from the USA to Portugal last year so I could make them.

The dough itself comes together quickly. However, since it does use melted butter, you need to have time to refrigerate the dough before it becomes rollable. Since these need to be rolled into balls and then rolled into sugar, these are the perfect cookie to have kids help with. My kids always look forward to helping with them.

The written recipe of my grandmother’s calls for cloves. It is included in the recipe below. However, I do not like clove, so I always leave it out. You are more than welcome to add it, but feel free to leave it out if you don’t care for it as well.