Soft Molasses Spice Cookies

In any New England cook book Molasses cookies are the most ubiquitous recipe. Molasses cookies are more venerable than chocolate chip. Chocolate chip cookies are only 65 years old.Adding rum to these cookies not only keeps them moist and soft but
qualifies them for a special name Joe Froggers.
Legend has it Old man Joe lived by a frog pond in Marblehead Mass.One day a neighbour gave Joe a jug of rum as a gift. Joe added a little to a batch of molasses cookies.
Eureka!A rum laced cookies that became famous around town as Joe Froggers.

Prepped

Just baked
Warm, soft, ready to eat


Soft Molasses Cookies

1/2 cup brown sugar or white sugar
1/2 cup molasses
1/4 cup butter or shortening
1 egg
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 cup hot water( 1/4c. water 1/4 c. rum)
2 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp. ground ginger
1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp. ground cloves
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp. mace (optional)
1/2 tsp. salt
Beat sugar, molasses, butter and egg in medium bowl until thoroughly combined. Dissolve baking soda in hot water. Stir into creamed mixture. Sift together flour, spices and salt. Stir into creamed mixture. Cover and refrigerate for 1 hour.
Preheat oven to 400.
Drop dough by the TBSP. 2 inches apart onto greased cookie sheets.
Bake to 9 minutes until just browning on edges. Cool on wire rack.
Makes 24 cookies.
Couple of changes I made to the cookies:
The dough is very soft but I still rolled them into balls then into white sugar.
I made 1 inch balls so ended up with 48 cookies.
I cooked them only 7 minutes and I added the mace and left out the cloves.
These cookies turned out to be very flavourful and soft, just what I was looking for on a cold snowy winter day.