Think of these soft, chewy cookies as “Molasses Cookies with a Kick.”

I’ve been busy researching and testing recipes for my new cookbook, The Gilded Age Christmas Cookbook: Cookies and Treats from America’s Golden Era. This involves going through nineteenth century cookbooks and magazines to uncover which cookies and other treats were Gilded Age holiday favorites.  

When I recreate historic recipes, I try to be as true to the original as possible. But sometimes the combination of ingredients doesn’t translate to today’s cooking methodology and I end up looking at several recipes from a similar timeframe to piece together a recipe that works for modern ingredients and palates. This was the case with the intriguing sounding Coffee Cookies, featured in an early 1900s Ladies Home Journal article entitled “Some Good Christmas Cookies,” by Mrs. Sarah Tyson Rorer, a well-known Philadelphia cooking instructor from the late 1870s through the early twentieth century who gave lectures to packed auditoriums of up to five thousand people. 

Mrs. Rorer’s original recipe called for a “pint of strong, warm coffee,” as well as sugar, butter, eggs, baking powder and flour. Since the mixture of measurements and ingredients were not working as a cookie dough should, I looked at some other era recipes and found several that incorporated molasses and ginger. This sounded really interesting, so I played around adding these two ingredients to Mrs. Rorer’s recipe. I also decided to use a combination of brewed coffee and instant coffee (which was ironically just entering the marketplace in the early 1900s) to achieve the coffee flavor I desired. I really liked the version I am sharing here – they are reminiscent of molasses crinkles with a hint of coffee.  

Although this might not be the “final” version included in the cookbook as I am still tweaking the recipe to try to bump up the coffee flavor a bit more, I wanted to share this recipe anyway since I think it is so delicious. If you give it a try, please let me know what you think!

•    ½ cup sugar
•    ½ cup (1 stick) salted butter, softened
•    ½ cup molasses
•    ¼ cup strong coffee
•    2 ¾ cups all-purpose flour
•    1 teaspoon baking soda
•    1 teaspoon ginger
•    1 ½ tablespoons instant coffee (I used Starbucks premium instant dark roast)
•    Additional granulated sugar

Preheat oven to 350°F. 

Using an electric mixer, cream butter and sugar on medium-high speed. Add molasses and coffee.

In a large bowl, mix flour, baking soda, ginger, and instant coffee. Add to the butter, sugar, and molasses mixture and mix until ingredients form a soft dough. 

Gather dough into a ball, wrap in plastic wrap and chill in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour. 

Scoop dough into walnut-sized balls and roll in granulated sugar. 

Place on parchment paper lined baking sheets and bake for 10 minutes. Cookies will still be slightly soft but will harden as they cool.

Allow to cool on baking sheets for a few minutes, then remove to a wire rack to cool completely.