Molasses Chocolate Chunk Cookies, And My Summer Vacation!

You know when you get together with friends, and you are glad to see them and are looking forward to getting down to talking about whatever it is you want to talk to them about, but first you have to suffer through their vacation pictures?  Think of this as the blog version of that.  I have a wicked good molasses chocolate chip cookie recipe to tell you about, but first....

My vacation.  :)

Every year we go to my favorite, favorite place in the world, which is the beautiful green mountains of Vermont.  If you really want to know how much I love this place, you can click here, or here.  If you don't, just take a look at this picture to see why.

I love both the gorgeous blue-green mountains AND the cows with equal amounts of love.  Which is good, because Vermont has a ton of both.  Here's our little piece of paradise, otherwise known as the cabin.  Where there is no cell phone service.  Or paved roads.  Nothing but corn and cows and quiet.

And this spectacular view from the south window, which makes me cry when I get there and cry when I leave.

Did I mention the cows?

This was breakfast.  Still warm off the vine.  Nothing else needed.

And here are my favorite chairs in the entire world, facing that view.



Anyway, going to Vermont always reminds me of my grandmother, and her amazing molasses cookies, and so when I found this recipe for molasses cookies with chocolate chunks on the fabulous Joy The Baker site RIGHT before I headed up there, I knew I had to make 'em.  And while my grandma's will always be my favorite recipe, these were pretty wonderful too!

Did I mention there were cows?

Here's the recipe.  :)

Molasses Chocolate Chunk Cookies, adapted slightly from Joy The Baker, who adapted it from Alton Brown.

2 sticks unsalted butter
2 cups plus 2 Tablespoons bread flour
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1/4 cup plus 1 teaspoon dark molasses, not blackstrap
1 egg
1 egg yolk
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup chocolate chips or chunks
sea salt for sprinkling on top of cookies just before baking

Heat oven to 350 degrees F.

Melt the butter in a heavy-bottom medium saucepan over low heat. Sift together the flour, salt, and baking soda and set aside.

In a medium sized bowl, mix the granulated sugar and molasses until no large molasses clumps remain. 

Pour the melted butter in the mixer’s work bowl. Add the homemade brown sugar. Cream the butter and sugar on medium speed for about 3 minutes. Add the egg, yolk, and vanilla extract and mix until well combined. Slowly incorporate the flour mixture until thoroughly combined. Stir in the chocolate chips.

Chill the dough for about 20 minutes, then scoop onto parchment-lined baking sheets.  Lightly sprinkle each dough ball with a few flecks of sea salt.  

Bake for 8 to 10 minutes or until golden brown.  Cool completely and store in an airtight container.

Click here for printable recipe

Homemade Chewy Granola Bars

I love granola bars. I especially love those ones that come two to a pack - the crunchy oats and honey ones? I always try and tell myself that I am being so healthy, but I know in my heart of hearts that I am really just eating a couple of nice crunchy cookies. Just keeping it real.

However, that doesn't keep me from eating them, and so I was happy to discover this recipe for homemade granola bars on CHOW (and if you don't know this very fun foodie website, you should check it out). Not only does this recipe make pretty great granola bars, but it is a great way to use up those odds and ends of nuts and raisins and seeds and perhaps even chocolate chips that are hanging around in almost-empty bags in your cupboard. If you are anything like me.

The trick with this recipe is to cut up them up into bars while they are still warm, so they don't harden into crunchiness and then break into a million pieces when you try to slice them up. I learned this lesson the hard way when I made my cashew brittle chunks. Give the tray about 10 or 15 minutes on the cooling rack once you take it out of the oven and then cut them into bars or squares or whatever you like. (I like bars, but that's just me.)

Here's the super-easy recipe.

Homemade Chewy Granola Bars, adapted from CHOW

Combine 3 cups rolled oats, 4 cups assorted mix-ins (nuts, dried fruit, chocolate chips, dried coconut, wheat germ, or whatever similar ingredients you have on hand), , 1/8 cup of molasses, and a can of sweetened condensed milk. Press into a greased pan and bake at 350°F for 25 to 30 minutes, until the top is lightly browned. Cool on a rack and cut after about 10-15 minutes.

Click here for printable recipe

Cashew Brittle Chunks

This is one recipe that almost didn't get posted here, because it just didn't turn out the way I expected it to. The title of the original recipe was "No-Bake Cashew Brittle Bars," and the picture of them showed these nice neat little bars. Yes, there was a crumb or two in the picture, but overall? Nice organized little bar cookies.

Now, I am a cashew fiend, and I always have them around. And anything with the word "brittle" in it has me at hello. These also have a good amount of oatmeal in them, along with one of my all-time flavorings in the world, and that is molasses. I heart molasses. My grandmother's molasses cookies (which you can find here) are the single most popular item on this blog by a country mile, so I think a lot of you are with me on the whole molasses thing. Plus I like the bunny on the molasses bottle cap.

Anyway, I made these things last weekend and followed all the directions, and they looked and smelled just heavenly, and then came time to cut them into the nice little bars. I got out my trusty big chef's nice and made a nice slice down the middle.

C R A C K!

They broke apart into two uneven hunks, with some smaller chunks breaking off the the bigger pieces. Hey!! What happened to my nice even no-bake-cashew brittle-bars??? I tried again, working on the bigger of the two uneven hunks. Same thing. So at the end of the whole process I ended up with what I am now calling cashew brittle chunks. That's when the Southern husband walked into the kitchen. I guess I was looking a little aggravated, and I did have a big knife in my hand at the time, and he catches on really quickly...so he asked me ever-so-gently if there was anything wrong?

I launched into a whole rant about bars and chunks and following directions and what the picture looked like and what MY version looked like and at some point during my whole monologue I realized that he was nodding...and eating. And eating. And eating. Now, the Southern husband is not a big one for sweets. He'll eat a cookie if I hand it to him, but he doesn't seek them out. (I know. I'm not sure what's wrong with him. It's just not normal.) But he was munching away on those chunks, and so I picked up my own piece.

Oh my goodness. They might not be beautiful, but they sure do have a nice personality. YUM. They are like the love child of a granola bar and traditional nut brittle. Sweet and crunchy and just a tiny bit chewy and full of that sweet molasses and salty cashew taste. Now, if you (or I) really did want them to come out in organized, even little square shapes, the trick would be to cut them up after they had cooled just enough to handle, but not so much that they were fully hardened. I'd say a good ten minutes in the fridge would do it...cut them up and then pop them back in to finish hardening. I will try that next time, because there WILL be a next time. It might ruin the Southern husband's reputation but I must tell you that he ate all but one chunk that day. All but one.

Who leaves just ONE? I ask you now.

Cashew Brittle Chunks, from Martha Stewart.com

• 1 1/4 cups old-fashioned oats
• 1 cup (about 5 ounces) salted cashews
• 1 1/2 ounces (3 tablespoons) unsalted butter
• 1/2 cup packed dark-brown sugar
• 3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 3 tablespoons light corn syrup
• 1 tablespoon molasses
• 1/2 teaspoon coarse salt

1. Line a 4 1/2-by-9-inch loaf pan with parchment paper, leaving a 1-inch overhang on each long side. Toast oats and cashews in a large skillet over medium-high heat, stirring often, until aromatic and just starting to turn golden brown, 5 to 6 minutes. Transfer to a medium bowl.
2. Add butter, sugar, cinnamon, corn syrup, molasses, and salt in the skillet, and cook over medium heat, stirring, until butter melts and mixture bubbles, 2 to 3 minutes. Pour hot mixture over oats and cashews, and stir to combine.
3. Transfer mixture to loaf pan. Using a spatula, press mixture into an even layer. Refrigerate until set, about 30 minutes. Remove chilled mixture from pan using parchment, discard parchment, and cut into 1-inch thick bars. Or chunks, as the case may be...

Click here for printable recipe

My Grandma's Molasses Cookies

This is one of my favorite cookie recipes ever, for a few different reasons. First of all, they are just great cookies, rich with the flavors of molasses and ginger and cinnamon and sugar. Second, they are a snap to make, and they turn out perfectly every time. But most importantly, I make them from a recipe card handwritten by my grandmother, one of the most amazing people I have ever known. I don't remember her as being particularly interesting in cooking, but what she made, she made well. I have a crystal-clear memory of being sent outside to play in the mornings on her beautiful Vermont farm with two slices of hot buttered cinnamon toast - one for each hand -- and I have never been able to replicate the particular taste of that toast. She made fantastic pancakes (with Vermont maple syrup of course), and always said she would make as many as we could eat, even if it was HUNDREDS, which my brother and I thought was one of the best things we had ever heard of.

She also made these perfect molasses cookies, and luckily for me at some point she wrote out the recipe for me, in her handwriting that I remember so well right to this day. I don't know why I don't make them more often, but every once in a while something reminds me of them and I just have to have them. The other day I was at Sissy's Kitchen, which is fittingly in my grandmother's Vermont town of Middletown Springs, and Sissy had a jar of something labeled "Gingersnaps." 25 cents each. I bought -- well, never mind how many.

There they are in that jar in the middle. And while Sissy may think they are gingersnaps, they tasted very much like my grandma's molasses cookies, and to be eating them right in the middle of Middletown Springs...well, let's just say it took me back a little.

And so here I am back from vacation in New Jersey, and one of the first things I wanted to do was find that recipe and make those molasses cookies. Sure enough, they were as sweet and spicy and dependable and wonderful as ever. Just like my Grandma.

GRANDMA'S MOLASSES COOKIES (which she attributes on the card to Fanny Farmer)

• 3/4 cup melted butter
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup molasses
• 1 egg
• 2 cups flour
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon each of ground cloves, ginger and salt
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• Extra sugar for rolling

1. Combine butter, sugar, molasses and egg in large mixing bowl
2. Combine flour, baking soda and spices in medium bowl
3. Add flour mixture to butter mixture and stir until well combined
4. Put in refrigerator until dough has hardened.
5. Scoop out dough (I find an ice cream scoop works well for this) and roll into 1 inch balls
6. Roll balls in sugar and place on cookie sheet, well-spaced apart
7. Press down slightly on cookie dough with the bottom of a glass or jar
8. Bake for 8-10 minutes in a 375 degree oven. Cool on rack.