Ginger-molasses cookies made with sorghum or blackstrap molasses. Older than gingerbread as commonly known — a Deep South Black kitchen tradition from minimal ingredients.
Molasses cookies are the original ginger cookie of the Black South — made long before spice cake and gingerbread became holiday staples. They were made with sorghum from local mills, ginger from the general store, and flour — minimal, accessible, enduring.
Blackstrap molasses is the most nutritionally valuable sweetener available — 1 tablespoon provides 20% DV iron, 12% DV calcium, 15% DV magnesium, and 10% DV potassium. Molasses ginger cookies using blackstrap are one of the few desserts in the Black culinary canon with genuine therapeutic micronutrient value, particularly for Black women managing iron-deficiency anemia. Ginger has well-documented anti-inflammatory and anti-nausea properties. This is the closest a cookie gets to functional food.
Blackstrap molasses is more bitter and less sweet than regular molasses — reduce sugar slightly to compensate for the intensity. Sorghum molasses (common in the Deep South) is milder and sweeter than blackstrap. Both work. Cream shortening and sugar, add egg and molasses, fold in flour sifted with ginger, cinnamon, cloves, baking soda. Roll in sugar, bake at 375°F until cracked on top.
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