Elise’s Molasses Cookies

Molasses cookies made with coffee and spices, shaped into balls and pressed with sugar before baking.

Molasses cookies made with coffee and spices, shaped into balls and pressed with sugar before baking.

Soft and spiced molasses cookies made with ginger, cinnamon, and cloves.

An old fashioned handwritten molasses cookie recipe flavored with ginger, cinnamon, and cloves, with part of the baking instructions missing.

A typed recipe for Grandma’s Oatmeal Bread, an overnight yeast bread made with oats and molasses for hearty homemade loaves.

A handwritten 1970 recipe for Nellie and Cressa’s Spice Cookies—with dark molasses, warm spices, and the choice to bake them now or chill the dough for tomorrow.

A handwritten 1970 recipe for Cressa’s Spice Cookies—with molasses, warm spices, Cressa’s own shortcut, and one rule: “Do not over bake.”

A handwritten recipe for Ginger Snaps—molasses, warm spices, a roll through sugar, and five dozen very good reasons to fill the cookie jar.