Peas on the Plate

Uncle John made these cookies every year since at least 2007 (and, realistically, for way longer than that). Want to know how I know that?

This is how:

John was a librarian at a public library and a conservatory of music. At the same time. FOR MULTIPLE DECADES. It’s safe to say that his dedication to record keeping is unquestionable, but it wasn’t until I opened the Cookie Bible in his kitchen after he died that I realized he made a list every year…and then KEPT THEM.

What I find most telling about who he was as a person is that every year, the list of recipients grew longer, not shorter. While the rest of us entrenched in tradition sometimes want to scale down because the effort is overwhelming, he just kept adding more people.

Meanwhile, here’s a live shot of me trying to plan out this year’s timeline for Christmas gatherings, baking, and cooking:

But we’re not here to talk about me. We’re here to talk about this amazing pillowy, cinnamon-y, molasses-y recipe I made from the Cookie Bible, which erroneously describes them as “cinnamon crisps.”

There are a few things in the original recipe that I had questions about that drove me almost to the brink of insanity:

What is light molasses and where can I buy it?

Did you know that if you Google the question above, the answers are unhelpful? Let me just add another unhelpful answer in there: it’s a reference to the way sugar looks after being processed once. Dark and Blackstrap molasses get processed further and get darker as time goes on. A Taste of Home has a really good breakdown of the technical differences between each type of molasses, but what it doesn’t contain is a shopping guide.

My primary question was where I could buy it. When I went to the grocery store, nothing was specifically labelled “light molasses.”

Finally, I caved and just bought Grandma’s Original, which is what I could find but not specifically labeled “light molasses.” Maybe I was being unnecessarily fastidious, but baking is a science and I was STRESSING. Guess what? Everyone survived.

What is pearl sugar?

The instructions say to roll the dough in pearl sugar prior to baking. This one is truly a mystery because my friend, who is a baker, didn’t know what it was either. Sugar pearls were the closest I could find, but seemed counterintuitive to decorate a cookie.

There are also these, but they looked a little too close to salt or seeds for my liking, so I finally went with some decorative sugar from Target and called it a day. Guess what? Everyone survived.

Without further ado, here’s the recipe for my uncle’s cinnamon molasses Christmas cookies. The warm, cozy flavor tastes like the way Christmas should feel. They’re good right out of the oven, they’re good when they’ve cooled off a little, and they’re good several days later as an appetizer while you wait for your DoorDash order to arrive.