Smitten Kitchen has a new cookbook out, and I’ve been counting down the days to both its delivery AND Deb’s book tour stop in Toronto. It’s now tradition! You can read about her first book tour in 2012 here, and her second tour in 2017 here.

This time Kristine came with me, as well as my two friends from work, Jess & Tania who also love to bake. Deb did a short interview with Tara O’Brady (who also interviewed her back in 2012, and who Tania knows from her days in magazines), then took questions from the audience (Jess asked where she gets her inspiration from these days, and the answer was TikTok!). We then waited in line to get our books signed and Kristine told Deb about how she finally learned to poach an egg on Smitten Kitchen (so cute), and I told Deb that I also spent the 2020 holiday season trying to find my holy grail ginger molasses cookie and was so excited to try her recipe in the book. We got a cute pic, and then were on our way! It was fab!

In keeping with tradition, where I posted cookie recipes from the first two SK cookbooks along with recaps of the book tour, I promptly made the Molasses Spice Cookies and guess what: instant holy grail status. This is honestly everything I was looking for the past few years in a ginger molasses cookie – chewy, flavourful and THICK, plus cute crackles on top! Every recipe I’ve tried either baked up too thin, or if it was thick, the texture was cakey, not chewy. These cookies are also made in one bowl, with just a whisk or spoon, so you can’t beat that either! They also use melted butter, so you don’t need to wait for it to come to room temperature! I’ll never make another recipe for these again.

I think this might be Deb’s best book yet – I didn’t even bother with post-its because it feels like I want to make everything in it! So excited to cook my way through it this winter.

Molasses Spice Cookies

Source: Smitten Kitchen Keepers

Ingredients

  • 2 1/3 cup flour
  • 2 tsp ginger
  • 3/4 cinnamon
  • 1/4 tsp cloves
  • 1/4 tsp allspice
  • 1/2 tsp baking soda
  • 1 tsp kosher salt (or 1/2 tsp table salt)
  • 3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) butter, melted and cooled slightly
  • 1/2 cup molasses
  • 2/3 cup brown sugar
  • 1 egg yolk

+ sugar (regular or turbinado) for rolling

Directions

  1. Heat the oven to 350, and line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
  2. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, spices, baking soda and salt.
  3. Make a well in the middle of the dry ingredients, and pour in the butter, molasses, brown sugar and egg yolk. Mix these together with a fork or whisk a little bit first, then switch to a big spoon or spatula and mix everything together until combined.
  4. Roll the dough into balls using about 1 1/2-2 tbsp of dough for each cookie (I think I might try making mine even bigger next time).
  5. Roll the dough balls in sugar and place on the baking sheet (they don’t spread very much). Bake for only 10 minutes and trust Deb – they’ll look like they’re not done – but take them out anyway! Let them cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.