My friend Rhonda gave me this recipe many years ago when our kids were just little. Rhonda made them for us to eat when our 2 families went on a trip to Calgary. I have been baking these cookies ever since then. Rhonda had sprinkled the cookies with some little ball candies at that time and I do that as well.  Just makes them a bit different and pretty! These cookies have just the right spices, not too much molasses (I’m not a fan of too much molasses). I have no idea where this recipe originated from. This recipe makes approximately 10 dozen cookies. I never half the recipe, I just put the extra cookies in the freezer and pull them out whenever we crave them! I warm them up for a few seconds in the microwave if I cant wait for them to defrost! Though sometimes we have been known to eat some frozen right out of the freezer!

 Ginger Cookies

Ingredients

 2 cups sugar

1 1/2 cups soft butter

1/2 cup molasses

2 eggs

4 1/2 cups flour

3 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

2 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp ground cloves

1 tsp ground ginger

1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

sugar…for rolling the cookies in before baking, I added some little ball sprinkles to the sugar I used

  Method

 Preheat oven to 350F

 Prepare cookie sheets..I line mine with parchment paper

 ***  scrape the sides of the mixing bowl often to make sure all the dough gets mixed

1. In a mixing bowl, combine the flour with the baking soda and dry spices and set aside

2. In the bowl of a mixer, (or by hand if you want) beat the sugar and butter together until well combined.

3, Add the molasses  *** spray the measuring cup with some cooking spray before measuring the molasses and they will just slide out!

4. Beat in the eggs and mix well

5. With the machine running on low, gradually add the flour mixture. (If your machine is on a faster speed the flour might fly all over the place )

6. Increase speed of the mixer and mix dough throughly until completely combined

7, Cover the bowl and chill for in a refigerator for about an hour  *** I don’t always do this, depends on how quickly I want to get them in the oven. I think that chilling the dough results in a chewier cookie

7. Shape dough into 1 inch balls. *** I use a cookie scoop

8. Roll the dough balls in sugar

9. Place on the prepared cookie sheets and bake 8-10 minutes   I check doneness by seeing the crack on top and that the bottoms are brown .  They will be chewy if cooked a little less time and crisp if cooked a bit longer.

These cookies puff up surfing baking but flatten when cooling