I made a couple batches of the Spice Cookie recipe a few days ago, and they're pretty good. The texture is spot on for Grammo's molasses cookies and think that's the molasses cookie I remember from childhood.

The Spice Cookie recipe has a larger ratio of molasses to sugar/flour than the Molasses Cookie recipe and leads to a softer/chewier cookie. I've been using Crisco for the shortening and Bre'r Rabbit blackstrap molasses.

I also doubled the spices the recipe calls for with the second batch, otherwise all I can taste is the molasses. I'm sure the spices were relatively expensive back in the day--& so were used sparingly. (AND my taster--like my hearing & vision--has waned in it's sensitivity).

I only made half batches of the recipe--but it still took all of 2-1/4 cups of flour to make a "soft dough"--per the original recipe--and perhaps could have used a bit more. A full recipe would have needed at least 4-1/2 cups of flour--that'd be a BIG batch of cookies!

—Rick Artist