Molasses Cookies

When I was a little kid, my mom worked for the State Fair. She worked for the Wine Pavillion, or something like that, and we got a lot of free passes to the fair every year. We used to go almost every day, and I have a lot of strong memories of those experiences.

I also spent a long time perfecting a chocolate cookie recipe, and love to bake. In 2006, I decided to combine State Fair and baking, and enter some baked goods. I entered berry pie tarts, and chocolate cookies. I got red ribbons for both, but I don't think that was necessarily impressive. The pie was 3rd out of 5th, and the cookies were 3rd out of 8th. Don't get me wrong, I was very pleased with the outcome, but my competitive nature called out for more.

This past summer I entered again, with the same pie, cookies, and also banana bread and peanut butter cookies. I was working at a summer camp at the time, which hampered me a bit. I didn't have my own kitchen, or supplies, but I did a bit better in the showings. I placed second out of 15 for the berry pie tarts, and got 2nd out of (I think, I'll check my records) 18 for the peanut butter cookies. I was beyond delighted! I had some ingredient issues with the chocolate chip cookies, and forgot to pick up muffin tin liners for the banana bread muffins, so I felt like I didn't have my best showing there.

Now I'm on the hunt for blue. I'd like to enter molasses cookies, but I haven't found a recipe that I really love yet. I really enjoy a cake like cookie, and my molasses have been coming out kind of flat.

I tried out a new recipe this weekend, which blogger isn't letting me cut and paste, to mixed results. They were fine, didn't have much loft to them, and needed a little vanilla I think. They also came out crisp on the bottom when fully cooked, and undercooked other wise. I'll keep trying.

This is not to say that I didn't eat them anyway!