Rainy day bakin'

Smokey warms his bones (and dries his paws) in front of the wood stove.

After making my afternoon rounds to the barn and the chicken coops, I came inside to try and get the wood stove going again. Today would have been a good day for my sewing machine to have been humming away, but once I came inside and warmed up I decided to bake instead. I found a wonderful recipe for some molasses cookies a few weeks ago and ever since then, Hubby has been eating them as fast as I can make them. How about we make some together!

Start off by preheating the oven to 350 degrees, then get 1/2 cup of butter, 1 cup of sugar, and 1/4 cup of shortening ready.

Cream the butter, sugar, and shortening, and add 1 large egg and 1/4 cup molasses to the mixture and mix well.

Meanwhile, in another bowl I've put the dry ingredients:

2 1/4 cups of all-purpose flour, 1tsp each of cinnamon, ginger, baking soda, and salt.

Add dry ingredients slowly to the batter and mix well. Batter should be sticky, but stiff enough to not stick to your fingers.

On the cookie sheets, sprinkle a small amount of sugar...

Then scoop out a walnut-sized ball of batter and roll in the sugar.

Once they're on the cookie sheet, sometimes I feel wild and sprinkle a little more sugar on the cookie dough. (*snicker* Our little secret, okay?)

Then, into the oven they go for 10-12 minutes...

And....

Ta-da!

Thanks for baking with me on a rainy day!