The softness of these cookies is a delightful surprise to those that assume they are ginger snaps. These soft cookies have been a hit since I first made them during my senior year in college in 1994. At the time I was looking to expand on the variety of cookies I made and this recipe first caught my eye because it contained dark corn syrup, molasses and milk—three ingredients I had never before used for cookies. In addition to molasses, the flavor of this cookie is derived from ground clove, ginger and cinnamon. The smell of these cookies baking is reminiscent of fall and winter holidays, but I enjoy their great taste year round.

Like any dark cookie dough, determining doneness by browning can be tricky. Other dark cookies will just start to burn and you know you have gone too far, but the key to good molasses softies is: keep them soft. Overcooked, these cookies will be hard, dry and crunchy long before they will actually burn. These cookies bake longer than most cookies and time can vary considerably depending on how large you roll the dough. I’ve rolled them as large as 1 3/4 inches and they cooked for 16 minutes. I’ve been a little more conservative lately and am rolling them 1 1/2 inches in diameter to yield a finished cookie 3 inches wide, which takes about 14 minutes.

For your first time baking these, I’d recommend baking a single cookie first. Once the timer goes off, quickly open the oven door and slice off an edge of the cookie. There should be just a thin layer of dark brown in the middle. If there is a lot, close the door and wait a minute and repeat on another edge, noting the total elapsed time. Once you have the time figured for your oven and dough ball size, stick with that time for subsequent baking runs and roll each ball of dough the same size as. Once removed from the oven, leave them on the cookie sheet for one to two minutes. This will let the cookie firm up a little and finish cooking that thin layer of dark brown, resulting in a pefectly round and chewy cookie.

Ingredients for making Molasses Softies.

Beat butter, sugar and egg until fluffy.

Pour milk, molasses and corn syrup into butter, sugar and egg mixture.

Mix the flour, baking soda, ginger, clove and cinnamon together and slowly add to the dough until incorporated.

Form dough into generous sized ball and roll in sugar to coat.

After baking around 14 minutes in 350° F. oven, let cool on sheets for 1 – 2 minutes.

The recipe pictured above, with detailed instructions and complete photo gallery, can be found on the Molasses Softies recipe page.

If you like apricots, then you are going to love these apricot bars. I used to enjoy these treats at the local Daly City Barnes & Noble that we would seek refuge in during foggy Sunday mornings. I’ve always liked dried apricots—growing up in the Santa Clara Valley it was hard not to since many houses were built on or between apricot and other fruit orchards (update: now condos and town homes). My mom used to say they were like little dried ears (the kinds that are delicious to nibble on). Once we moved into the sunshine further down the peninsula in 2001, I never saw those apricot bars again.

For quite a few years now, my grandmother, Polly, of Yam Good Casserole fame, has been giving us apricots. She had several apricot trees in her yard and would have them dried locally before distributing them to friends and family. They have since moved away from their fruit garden and now live right next to a very popular fruit stand in Los Altos. Instead of her own home-grown apricots, we now receive a delicious two pound box of slab, Blenheim apricots. As much as I like dried apricots, two pounds is a lot to nibble on, so I have been on the lookout for a way to bake with them. A few years ago we discovered James McNair’s and Andrew Moore’s book of coffee house favorites, Afternoon Delights. We made it a couple times and decided there just wasn’t enough of the the crust and topping, so we increased this by about 25% in our adaptation of this recipe for apricot bars.

You can use any variety of dried apricots to make these—or even other fruits—but if you can find the Blenheim apricot, look no further. Grown primarily right here in California’s Santa Clara Valley, these are among the most flavorful apricots you will taste. I would recommend going for the slab variety as they are the most juicy and delicious. More information about Blenheim apricots can be found at the Apricot King. They also offer online ordering, though I have never ordered from them—or anyone— since I work in Santa Clara and Polly continues to deliver apricots annually. In general, dried apricots are usually a little pricey, so save this dessert for dear friends, when, of course, money is no object.

Ingredients for making Apricot Bars.

Hydrate apricots with sugar and water over medium heat until liquid is reduced to a thick syrup.

Process hydrated apricots until only thick chunks remain.

Melt butter for crust/topping over stove or in microwave.

Pour melted butter into flour, brown sugar, cinnamon and oat mixture.

Stir mixture until well blended and reserve half for topping.

After pressing half of oat mixture onto bottom of pan, evenly spread apricot filling with spatula.

Use bottom of measuring cup to press remaining half of oat mixture over filling.

Bake in 350 °F oven for 30 minutes or until topping begins to brown.

The recipe, with detailed instructions and complete photo gallery, can be found on the Apricot Bars recipe page.

It’s Meyer lemon season. Every week my son and I go to attend our violin and viola lessons where we wait outside the studio next to a fantastic Meyer lemon tree. Once the lesson is over, we gather up a half dozen lemons to take home. A cross between a lemon and orange, Meyer lemons are less acidic and great for baking. Up to now I have mostly been making lemon bars, but have always been on the lookout for a lemon cookie recipe.

Most citrus cookie recipes I found were accompanied by a powdered sugar based icing. At first, I was reluctant to make an iced cookie, as I was really looking for a classic cookie shape and texture. I was almost tempted to make a lemon and rosemary recipe I found since we have fresh rosemary in our backyard, but was determined for a lemon only cookie. Some recipes had shortening, others were shortbread. Finally I found this recipe in The Great American Cookie Cookbook. As usual, I upped the amount of lemon zest called for since Meyer lemons aren’t as harsh as the typical eureka lemons found in most supermarkets.

At first, I made only a few cookies per sheet, starting with simply rolled balls of dough. They turned out beautiful, but were too cake-like; we found ourselves enjoying the crispy edges the most. The next sheet I flattened the dough with a glass as suggested by the recipe, and these turned out better. The final sheets I really flattened the cookie dough to 1/4 inch and made sure they were browned on the edges before removing from the oven. The icing in this recipe gives the cookies a little zing, which you can adjust by how densely you space your icing stripes.

Ingredients for making Iced Lemon Cookies.

Beat butter until light and fluffy before adding sugar.

Use a microplane grater to zest Meyer lemons.

Flatten cookies to 1/4 inch thick with bottom of glass dipped in sugar.

Use a plastic bag with corner snipped off to pipe lemon icing on cookies.

Finished cookies are light and fresh with just a little zing.

For a recipe with as much butter and sugar as chocolate chip cookies, it only made 24 cookies. This was the only disappointment with these cookies, however—they vanished quickly when I brought them into work this morning. The recipe, with detailed instructions and complete photo gallery, can be found on the Iced Lemon Cookie recipe page.

I just celebrated my birthday last month and realized that I can honestly say I have been making cookies for thirty years. I first started making cookies with my mom in the mid 1970’s when I was five or six years old. My first grade teachers put together a cookbook filled with student recipes ranging from, “scabetti” (spaghetti), to the popular, “how to make a bowl of cereal”. My recipe was for M&M Cookies, one of my favorites at the time.

The teacher instructed each child to draw a picture of the finished recipe. They then wrote down the recipe as each child recalled it from memory. Of course, nearly all the recipes omitted key steps and ingredients, but this is what truly gives the cookbook character. Logistical details are not noticed by children, and reading the recipes you see the world as children do. The final instructions for my cookie recipe ended with “bake until the buzzer goes off”. That is when you know the cookies are done baking, right? Time’s up.

Baking cookies during adolescence
By the time I was 11 or 12, my mom entrusted me to make cookies when she was away at work. My sister and mom would both frequently grab spoonfuls of dough from the bowl or unbaked cookie dough as it sat on a cookie sheet. I was convinced—rightly so—that taking some dough before all ingredients were assembled would adversely affect the quality and consistency of the finished cookies. My best defense was to wait for the two of them to leave the house before finally assembling ingredients.

With both mom and sister gone, I could safely bake the cookies without fear of attrition. After cooling the cookies on paper towels—really should have used cooling racks—I carefully put three cookies in a sandwich bag and line them neatly on the counter. I would then do my best to clean the kitchen up as it was before, only the smell of the cookies giving away my covert operation. My mom, in order to not destroy her diet, would frequently share the cookies with her friends and coworkers. For one or two years my Mom’s best friend actually hired me to make several batches of cookies for her during the holidays.

The college years
Attending college in the early 90’s I would frequently make cookies for eating and sharing with housemates or classmates at school study groups. Many female students—incredulous that a guy could (or would?) bake cookies—demanded recipe details as evidence that I had actually baked the cookies myself. Even today I have to convince some coworkers who incorrectly assume that my wife makes the cookies I frequently bring in to share.

Cookies in the workplace
When I started working for Backroads, I would bake cookies and bring them along as a nice treat for guests to pack before cycling. The home-made cookies were a welcome substitute for the half dozen store-bought cookies we typically stocked. A guest from Tennessee ate one of my cookies and then told me in a nice southern drawl, “Damn, Brian, someday you gonna make someone a fine wife!” I actually met my wife while working at Backroads. A fellow trip leader, she was well known for her kitchen sink cookies.

Passing the torch
So after 30 years I am now making cookies with my two kids, ages 5 and 7. When they see me get my KitchenAid mixer out to make cookies, they run down the hallway to fetch the stool and stepladder so they can ‘help’ daddy. With so much help, it takes nearly twice as long, but the kids and I enjoy making cookies together, particularly on Saturdays when Mom is at work.

At a recent parent-teacher conference, the teacher read a sample from my son’s writing assignments. “My dad likes to bake cookies” she read, pausing to look up at us and ask, “Really? Is that true?” Yes, it’s true.