Sunday Afternoon Baking

"Slow as molasses." It's funny trying to explain to the kids some of the phrases I use often, but this one is evident as soon as one has any dealing whatsoever with molasses (by the way, what the heck IS molasses??). I'm making a monster batch of ginger cookies, and getting that 1/2 cup of molasses out of the container took, oh, about five minutes. No exaggeration. Drip, drip, drip. And yet the flow was also relentless and difficult to stop, once started.

This is a really good recipe, and makes the most perfect-looking, sugar-studded cookies. My friend Zoe gave it to me, and I thought I'd post it here. It's been awhile since I posted a recipe. Today, I doubled the recipe below, and plan to freeze about half.

Ginger Snaps

3/4 cup butter
1 cup white sugar, plus extra for rolling
1 egg
1/4 cup molasses
2 cups flour
2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tblsp ground ginger
1 tsp cinnamon

Cream together sugar and butter, beat in egg, add molasses (Patience, please!). Sift together flour, soda, salt, ginger and cinnamon. Stir flour mixture into butter base and mix together thoroughly. Make small balls (about one teaspoon) and roll them in sugar. Place on pan, leaving enough room for spreading, and bake at 350 for 8-9 minutes.

It's the most gorgeous fall day and Kevin and kids are outside raking leaves. We didn't do much yesterday and this morning I found myself fantasizing about hiring a cleaning company to come in and scrub my bathrooms ... but instead did a quick clean-up in both, up and down, and left with the girls for Sunday School. The boys stayed home and picked up the living-room (lots of new piles added on top of old ones) and vacuumed downstairs. So the state of the house could be worse. The only task I've really set for myself this afternoon is to bake these cookies and make the kids' lunches for tomorrow. My mom is having us over for supper tonight and I'm very very happy not to have think of what to cook. The thinking of it occupies almost as much time as the making of it.

Oh dear, the smell of freshly baked cookies is being forcibly blown out into the backyard via the stove vent and has attracted the attention of several small people, who are now clamouring and drooling at the door.

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