It’s unfortunate that I started the pantry challenge with nearly two full boxes of butter.  A shame, really.  If you’ve been following the challenge, you know that two sticks of butter were already sacrificed to become delicious Double Chocolate Mackinac Island Fudge Cookies.  And…they are now gone, which means it’s time to make more cookies!

I also had some roasted pumpkin in the freezer that I wanted to use, and about 1/3-1/2 cup of amazing black strap molasses in the cupboard.  With less than two weeks left before the end of the challenge, I couldn’t make pumpkin cookies and molasses cookies.  But I could make pumpkin-molasses-ginger cookies!  Game on.

I began the task by finding three recipes, one for each type of cookie to be incorporated into the massive cookie recipe.  Iced Pumpkins Cookies, Ultimate Ginger Cookies, and Molasses Cookies.  The goal was to incorporate the best of each.  I wanted pumpkin goodness, ginger spiciness, and molasses sweetness.  I had each recipe pulled up on the computer taking up 1/3 of the screen each, and I compared and contrasted and came up with a recipe as I went.

The final product was not too bad.  We’ve decided that they are more cake-like, which is fine.  And they are less sweet than most cookies.  So we’ve decided to call them “muffins” which makes them eligible for breakfast, which is the important thing to note.  If I were to make them again with a fully stocked kitchen, I would add some more molasses (maybe 2/3 cup) and/or a bit more sugar.  They must be pretty good considering my husband just asked me to hide them from him so he won’t eat them all.  I obliged and put some in the freezer.

Pumpkin-Molasses-Ginger Cookies

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup butter (1 stick), almost melted
• 1 cup brown sugar (should have added another 1/4 cup)
• 1/3 cup molasses (use 1/2 cup if you have enough)
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 cup pumpkin puree
• 1 1/2 cup wheat flour
• 1/2 cup brown rice flour
• 1/2 cup oat flour (oatmeal put in a blender)
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp cloves
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg
• 1/2 tsp ginger
• 1/4 cup candied ginger

Preparation

1. In a large bowl mix nearly melted butter with brown sugar, molasses, egg, vanilla, and pumpkin.

2. In a separate bowl, combine flours, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and spices, including the candied ginger.

3. Add the dry ingredients to the wet and mix until combined.

4. Chill the dough in the fridge for an hour.  Preheat the oven to 360° when the dough is nearly finished chilling.  (I compromised between 350 and 375 among the recipes).

5. Roll dough into 1 in balls.  I rolled the balls in powdered sugar (mostly because I am out of granulated sugar), but the cookies were so moist that the sugar ended up absorbed into the cookies the next day.

6. Place the balls on a cookie sheet and bake for 14 minutes.  Once done, remove from the oven and cool on cooling racks.