Spatulas, Corkscrews & Suitcases

RECIPES, WINNERS & ARTICLES Round-Up

                                        

Week Ending - Today!
Here's my latest recipes. articles and giveaway winner posts for the week ending...um...Monday, March 30th. Lots of ooey, gooey things like Reese's Peanut Butter Cup Cheesecake, and my absolute favorite in the whole wide world, Coconut Cake with Coconut Frosting! Yes, Kerri & Erika, here it is! My secret weapon...I mean recipe! I've also included a few of my favorite things because spring is here, and Easter is coming! The Lemon Meringue Pie is to-die-for, as is the French Lemon Tart. Oh, and try the Blueberry Muffins, my other, other Easter brunch favorite!

                                                                 

Last Call for Examiner Referrals. The deadline for referrals is tomorrow by midnight MT. Email me if you have questions. My ID # is 4208 when you get ready to apply! It's easy, seems like everyone gets in!

                                                                        

And finally, I did an article for The Daily Tiffin, and did it here as well on Kids in the Kitchen. You'll get to see my two granddaughters up-close in the kitchen!

                                                                       

Recipes Galore!

• Popular Lemon Dessert Recipes for Spring
• Top 10 Cookie Recipes
• Reese's Peanut Butter Cup Cheesecake
• Best Blueberry Muffin Recipe Evah!
• Coconut Cake & Buttercream Frosting Recipes

                                               

Last Call for Alcohol...I mean Examiner!

• LAST CALL for Examiner Referrals! (Deadline 3/31)
• Cupcake Cookbooks - Kids in the Kitchen
• Best Kitchen Gadgets & Small Appliances
• Dessert Express Cookbook & Winner!

Finally, and I really do mean finally...I'm including my Grown-Up Macaroni & Cheese Recipe one more time because I can. And, it really is so good, that I'm gonna make it again tomorrow night for supper...again!

                                                                

WORLD PEACE COOKIES - TWD

 

Don't Miss Lake Champlain Chocolates Give Away!
Check out this link for the latest giveaway for a 22 piece Grand Valentine Chocolate Heart from Lake Champlain Chocolates. This is the 1st give away in my month-long Blogiversary Celebration! This luscious box of gourmet chocolates are just in time for Valentine's Day too! Deadline is Friday, February 6th, midnight EST. 

                                              

Tuesdays With Dorie World Peace Cookies
These were the darkest, richest, blackest cookies I've ever seen! They were sinful and chocolaty and unbelievably awesome! Thanks to Jessica of cookbookhabit for choosing Dorie's World Peace Cookies. You can find the recipe on page 138-139 in Dorie Greenspan's book, Baking: From My Home To Yours, or click on over to Jessica's blog for the recipe.

I've been out straight this week with other duties, so I asked my son Brad to make the cookies. I gave him the recipe and all the ingredients and away he went! He did a great job, and like I said, the cookies came out awesome! Thanks Brad!

                                     

Check out the rest of Tuesdays With Dorie's blogroll for more World Peace Cookies!

MOST POPULAR CHRISTMAS COOKIES 2009

   

Most Popular Christmas Cookies & Recipes
Christmas cookies piled high in boxes, tins and cookie jars are evry kids delight, no matter how ld he or she is! Even though John is ahem... an adult, he still loves a plate full of Christmas cookies, as does my grown-up kids! No one is too old for Sugar Cookies!

 

COOKIES, COOKIES & MORE CHRISTMAS COOKIES!
I've been going nuts making Christmas cookies the last few weeks. I needed pictures for Suite101 and also for my blog, Spatulas & Corkscrews, so I figuured I may as well crank up my oven and bake! Thing is, it takes me so much longer with only one little baking pan and a small oven. John suggested I buy another Kitchen Aid mixer because I missed my old one so badly. But, no matter how much cookies dough I make, I still can't fit more than one pan in my oven at a time! 12 cookies, that's all I can do until the first pan comes out! So, what good is a Kitchen Aid mixer that pumps out enough dough to make 7 dozen cookies? It'd take me all day to bake those! Oh well, at least he was thinking of me...or was it his stomach he was thinking about?

 

Suite101's Most Popular Christmas Cookies
I wrote an article for Suite101's Baking & Desserts section the other day titled, "Most Popular Christmas Cookies & Recipes". The article has done really well too! Who would think that Christmas Cookies would be popular at this time of year? DUH! Anyway, I showcased a few of the most requested cookies in the article, according to my stats that is!

 

COOKIES!
My plan was to make a nice tidy list where you could find all the cookie recipes I've published over the months, without having to hunt for them. As always, feel free to scroll down to the bottom of the recipes and hit the "Print Article" button for later use. Click "Email Article to a friend" to share the recipe. Then, before you go, don't forget to hit the "Recommend Article" button, because well, you know why! So, without further ado, here's my.....

Most Popular Christmas Cookies list for 2009!

Pecan Butter Balls
Peanut Butter Blossom Cookies
Soft Sugar Cookies
Cherry Kisses Cookies
Soft Snickerdoodles
Thumbprint Cookies
Shortbread Cookies
Santa's Whiskers Cookies
Pecan Penuche Fudge Recipe
White Chocolate Macadamia Cookies
Chocolate No Bake Cookies Recipe
Double Chocolate Chip Cookies
Peanut Butter Cookies
Oatmeal Raisin Cookies
Chocolate Chip Cookies
Soft Molasses Cookies
Raspberry Linzer Cookies
Coconut & Lime Biscotti
Raspberry Rugelach
Buttery Jam Cookies
Chocolate World Peace Cookies
Chocolate Chunkers Cookies
All Occasion Sugar Cookies
Coconut & Lime Madeleines
Gourmet Chocolate Fudge Brownies Recipe
Gourmet Chocolate PB Cup Brownies
Nutella Chocolate Fudge Brownies
Peanut Butter Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies
Cherry & White Chocolate Granola Cookies
Whoppers Chocolate Malted Milk Cookies
Brown Sugar Pecan Shortbread Cookies

 

Don't miss My Most Popular Christmas Desserts list! It's full of recipes for cheesecakes, cakes, pies, tiramisu and much, much more!

BUTTER COOKIES with RASPBERRY JAM - Tuesdays With Dorie

                                                        

Tuesdays With Dorie
It's that time again! No, not Christmas! It's time for another Tuesdays With Dorie recipe! I know, another week has passed and Christmas is right around the corner. I mean, literally around the corner! I still can't believe next week is Christmas! In just a few weeks, Tuesdays With Dorie will be a year old. AND, next week it's my turn to choose the recipe from Dorie Greenspan's book, Baking: From My Home To Yours. I'm working on it right now, and no, it's not more Christmas cookies! So, make sure to come back December 23rd for something ultra luscious!

                                                                  

I want to say thanks to Heather of Randomosity and the Girl for choosing this weeks recipe for Buttery Jam Cookies. If you're following along with your own book, you'll find the recipe for Buttery Jam Cookies on page 80 of Dorie's book. If you don't have the book, then by all means, go right over to Heather's blog for it!

                                                                            

Buttery Jam Cookies
I have to say, I wasn't really impressed with the name of these cookies. Plus, with no photo in the book to compare with, I really didn't know how they were gonna turn out. The ingredients were like that of any other Christmas cookie. Butter, sugar, flour, egg, etc. But, there was another ingredient in these cookies that stood out...Jam! After reading the recipe through again, I realized these weren't Thumbprint cookies with a dab of jam in the center. The jam was mixed right into the dough!

                                                                 

Dorie's Recipe for Butter Cookies
Dorie's recipe calls for apricot jam, although any thick jam would do. I didn't have any apricot jam hanging around, so I used raspberry jam. It also called for a bit of ground ginger. Well, I didn't have that either, BUT I did have a piece of fresh gingerroot! I grated up the ginger and because it's pretty potent, I used a little under one teaspoon. Boy, did this smell good! The cookie dough was an odd shade of gray-ish pink. EEEWWW! I guess I was expecting a bright red color after adding red raspberry jam to the dough. But it was tasty, so I kept going.

                                                                              

The dough was thick, so I scooped it up and put it on the cookie sheet in mounds. I thought it would spread more while baking, but it just sat there in a ball. If you're looking for flat cookies, press the dough down a little before baking, if not, you'll have Buttery Jam Cookie Balls!                                                                

Decorating the Butter Cookies
The finished cookies were not pretty at all. In fact, they looked rather boring, like something I would definitely hide on the bottom of the cookie tray! I didn't want to trash these cookies, so I decided to dress them up instead. I rolled the raw dough in sugar and made a well in the top of some of the cookies and put a 1/2 teaspoon of jam in them after they were baked. Very pretty!

                                                              

BEFORE -- BORING!

Next, I drizzled chocolate ganache over the tops of some of the cookies. Even prettier! And still others were rolled in Christmas sprinkles. Ahhh, that's the color I was looking for! Red, green and white Christmas colors!

                                                                      

AFTER -- CUTE!

Thumbs Up? What Does John Think?
I felt much better about the cookies after that. I made them early in the day, so when John got home, the decorated cookies were all done and sitting on the cooling rack looking nice and festive. He thought he was gonna have to wait for me to take photos, but I surprised him by saying, "Would you like to try a few cookies?" HAHA! He was all over that plate in a matter of minutes! He pronounced them delicious. I just think they're cute!

                                                                      

 

Check this list out! It's a collection of all my favorite Christmas Cookie Recipes!

LINZER SABLES CHRISTMAS COOKIES - TWD

                                                              

Don't Miss The Lake Champlain Chocolates Giveaway Going on Now!

Christmas Cookies and More Christmas!
These pretty Linzer Cookies are just right for Christmas cookie platters and Christmas cookie exchanges. They're made with ground nuts, in this case almonds, real butter, a dash of cinnamon and cloves and sandwiched with raspberry jam. Kind of like a shortbread cookie with jam in the middle. I gave away all of my cookie cutters a few years ago, so I had to buy a few. I didn't want to spend a lot, so I got the Christmas basics. Snowman, gingerbread man, Christmas tree and a star. For this recipe I wanted something that would stand out and say WOW! Stars seemed like a magical choice for me!

                                                                        

Am I behind Or What?
Yes, I am behind, that's why you're seeing double today! Actually, you're gonna see triple today - three recipes - because TWD wants all recipes posted on Tuesdays from now on. Tuesdays??? The nerve!!! I posted Grandma's All-Occasion Sugar Cookies early this morning, now the Linzer Cookies, and in a few hours I'll post Dorie's recipe for a combination Pumpkin & Pecan Pie, also known as a "Two-fer"! Don't say I didn't warn you!
                                                                                  


Tuesdays With Dorie
Thanks to Dennis from Living The Life for choosing this weeks recipe from Dorie Greenspan's book, Baking: From My Home To Yours. You can find it on pages 134-135 if you want to follow along. If by any chance you are the one person on earth who HASN'T bought the book yet, you can get the recipe from Living The Life, where Dennis has bragging rights to play host for TWD!

                                                                       

Linzer Sables
The dough was quick and easy to mix even with the ground almonds. It does need to be refrigerated for a few hours before cutting out the cookies. This recipe was different than most rolled cookies, as I the instructions said to roll out the dough and place between waxed paper BEFORE cutting. It worked fine, although I had to adjust my baking time for a few extra minutes. I used raspberry jam inside my cookies and then dusted them generously with powdered sugar. They looked extra festive with their snowy coating. For something out of the ordinary, my friend Liliana from My Cookbook Addiction, used Nutella as a filling! Now, why didn't I think of that? They must have been delicious, right Liliana???

                                                                               

How Many did the Recipe Make?
I followed the recipe exactly like it said and I onlly came up with 30 single cookies or 15 finished sandwich cookies. She estimated 50 cookies and 25 cookies, all assembled. Maybe mine were a little bigger than Dorie's, but then again, I've always had trouble with Dorie's measurements, amounts and yields. That's OK this time as I had plenty of other cookies for my Christmas cookie tray. 

                                                     

So, here you go with Dorie's Linzer Sables. Go get the recipe from Living The Life, adjust the ingredients  depending on the size of your cookie cutters, and make up a cookie platter and give some away!

My Turn, My Turn!
PSSST! My Tuesdays With Dorie turn is coming up on December 23rd! Don't miss it. I picked out something very yummy!

 

ALL-OCCASION SUGAR COOKIES RECIPE - Tuesdays With Dorie

                                                  

Cookies, Cookies & More Christmas Cookies!
Christmas is right around the corner, and everyone knows Christmas cookies are the most popular treat anyone can give to friends and loved ones! My family loves Christmas cookies and the more varieties the better too. I used to make at least 10 different Christmas cookie recipes every year, sometimes more. When we had the bakery, we would make boxes and boxes full of cookies.

When we made as many as time would allow, we would get out all the trays and set up an assembly line. Three Pecan Butter Balls, three Cherry Kisses, five Peanut Butter Blossoms with Hershey Kisses, five Santa's Whiskers, three Snickerdoodles, two Chocolate Dipped Coconut Macaroons, an assortment of Thumbprint cookies, Shortbread, Soft Sugar cookies, Spritz cookies, Chocolate Chip, Molasses and Oatmeal Raisin cookies rounded out the trays. I'd wrap them in pretty cellophane and tie them up with colorful ribbons. One year, as I looked the bakery, I realized I had made 220 pounds of cookies! Not cookies, but pounds of cookies! And you know what? We ran out of them! People were still calling for more! Ahhhh, memories!

                                                                           

Now that I live on a sailboat with my mini easy bake oven, I can only bake one sheet tray of cookies at a time. It takes me a LOT longer to make one batch now than it ever did. But, boat or no boat, I was bound and determined to make Christmas cookies this year! After four years of not making Christmas cookies to sell, I got right back in the festive cookie mood again, kind of like riding a bike or having sex! Anyway......

Grandma’s All-Occasion Sugar Cookies
Many thanks to  Ulrike of Küchenlatein for choosing Grandma’s All-Occasion Sugar Cookies for this weeks Tuesdays With Dorie challenge. You'll find the recipe on pages 146-147 of Dorie Greenspan's book, "Baking: From My Home To Yours". If you don't have the book, feel free to click on over to Ulrike's blog for the recipe, and make sure to choose the English version.

                                                                         

This recipe for Sugar Cookies didn't thrill me as it was written. They looked a little boring to me. So, being the non-conformist baker that I am, I fooled around with the recipe a little. I divided the dough in half and colored half with red cake coloring. Then, I rolled them into long ropes and twisted the red and white ones together into a candy-cane like log. I rolled the log in holiday sprinkles, wrapped it in parchment paper and put it in the fridge to harden. When it came time to bake the cookies, I sliced the log into 1/4" slices, put them on the cookie sheet and baked as directed. That's why they're so cute and colorful! Easy Peasy Refrigerator Cookies! It sure wakened up my cookie tray that's for sure!

                                                                            

Tuesdays With Dorie
Guess what? I'll be choosing the recipe the week of December 23rd! I know, I can't believe it either! When I started baking with Tuesdays With Dorie way, way back in March, I never thought I would see this day come along. After all, I was number 76 back then. Baker coma and bakers go, and soon I was bumped up to number 44. You'll have to be patient though, as I can't reveal the secret recipe until that day is here. Then I'll be the hostess with the most-ess and I'll have the honor of typing out the recipe and posting it to my own blog! YAY and Woo Hoo! Make sure you come back and see what I picked!

                                                                              

RUGELACH RECIPE ~ Tuesdays With Dorie

                                                                                 

Tuesdays With Dorie
When this group started in January, there were only a few friends baking along every week Then it exploded into something gargantuous! (I love that word! Sounds like something from Godzilla!) As bakers told their friends, and they spread the word, the inevitable was bound to happen. Soon, Tuesdays With Dorie had 200 members, with more signing up every week. The founder of the group, Laurie, had to do something.

                                                          


Tuesdays With Dorie had taken on a life of its own. Last month Laurie announced she was giving all the procrastinators until the end of October to make a decision. Join now, or forever hold your peace. That spurred on plenty of activity, and if you look at the blogroll now, you'll notice a whopping 360 bakers! That means the new bakers won't get to choose a recipe until the year...2013!  YIKES! Good thing I got my name in early! My calendar says I'll be the one choosing the recipe around January 6th!  WOW! That's only 8 weeks away! What will I choose? Anybody got any suggestions?

                                                        

Raspberry Walnut Rugelach & Variations 
I've never made rugelach before, so this was something completely new. Oh, I've made croissants, puff pastry, turnovers and danish in my past life, so it wasn't totally foreign to me. Same concept, right? It seems most bakers varied and changed the recipe somehow to reflect their own taste buds. Some even made savory rugelach with cheese and meat! That sounded good to me, maybe I'll make those sometime! Mine just have the traditional raspberry filling with nuts. Not too exotic, but they sure were tasty, especially with the coarse decorating sugar on them!

                                                                    

Dorie Greenspan's Baking: From My Home to Yours
Thanks to Grace of Piggy’s Cooking Journal for choosing the Rugelach Recipe from Dorie Greenspan's Baking: From My Home to Yours. If you have the book, and you're baking along with us, you can find the recipe on pages 150-151. If not, then click on over to Grace's blog and see what she's done with the recipe.

                                                                              

About the photography--Our son Brad has been staying with us on the boat for a while, and being the good mother that I am, I put him to work! I have an 8 year old camera that I'm getting fed up with. I really need to invest in something better. But it's what I have to work with for the time being. Anyway, after a long day of cooking and baking one day, I handed him the camera and let him work his magic. He didn't disappoint me. The photos he took came out great!  So, while I still take the bulk of my own photos, I now have a personal photographer (Brad) taking my pictures. But I only get his help when he's not working at his real job! Thanks Brad!

                                                                           

Special note--Right now, Brad is making a BIG pot of Split Pea Soup for me! The boat smells heavenly! I guess I'll be posting Split Pea Soup real soon. And of course, I'm making him take pictures between chopping celery and cleaning up! Do I have it made, or what? (P.S. Brad is 24 and a single dude, AND very, very handsome - if I do say so myself!)

COOKBOOK GIVE-AWAY ~ "Martha Stewart's Cookies"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I promised you a Cookbook Give-Away and here it is!

Because I appreciate you all so much, I'm giving away a Brand New 2008 copy of "Martha Stewart's Cookies". (The fact that I love all the hype has nothing to do with it!) Check out the link to read the Amazon review and all the cookies you have to look forward to!

                                                                               

It's so Brand New, that I told myself I wouldn't open it. But I just couldn't help myself. I needed to know what was in it so I could get you all excited! Well, let me tell you...I want this book for myself and I may just go out and buy another one, just for me! Why do I want one so bad? Cause it's got lots and lots of ooey, gooey, gorgeous, mouth-watering close-up pictures!In fact, I think there's a photo for all 175 cookie recipes!

A free cookbook? Come On! What's the deal?
As Erika from Stampin' Mama would say..."So......what do you need to do to enter this Groovy Give-Away?"

I'm giving you a whole week for this Cookbook Give-Away.
Why so long? Because I want all of you to Spread the Love and send all your friends over to enter too!
                                                                        

All you have to do is leave a comment on this post and tell me what your favorite dessert is. Or tell me what recipes you're looking for, what you'd like to see more of. Tell me why I should give away more cookbooks. You get the picture! The more comments I get, the more likely I am to make this a regular feature.

If you do happen to have your own blog, you can help spread the love and mention my "Martha Stewart's Cookies Cookbook Give-Away".

And while you're at it, make sure to enter your email address into my Feedblitz box at the very top of my blog so that you don't miss out on any of the fun stuff. (if you've already done this or you subscribe to my blog through a reader service like Google or Bloglines, you can skip this part)

*** This Give-Away is NOT limited to where you live.....so even if you are outside of the US or Canada, you can still participate.***

I'll pick the winner with the random number generator on Tuesday (4/29) at 9 pm Eastern Time and announce the winner here!
                                                                            

So, there you have it! Go and Spread The Love! X O

BAKING & DESSERTS ~ A VERY BUSY WEEK!

                                                            
CARROT CAKE with CREAM CHEESE FROSTING
Lest you think I've fallen off the face of the earth, let me give you a little taste of what I've been doing since my last post when I brought you Gooey Chocolate Cakes from Tuesdays With Dorie.

Carrot Cake, Coconut Cake and Chicken Pot Pies
Within the last few days, we made a Six Pound Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting; a luscious Coconut Cake; 6 extra large Chicken Pot Pies; a large batch of White Chocolate Butter Pecan Cookies; LOTS of Eclairs & Cream Puffs with homemade vanilla custard AND 21 Pie Crusts.

Hollywood or Bust!
We took way too much video footage for You Tube tutorials and now have to edit all the goofs and bloopers! Our son John, will be forced into slave labor to attempt this painstaking Hollywood knock-off job.  It should be interesting to see the finished videos: "How to Make Pie Crust" & "How To Decorate A Cake".  If anyone can do it, he can.

Quiche, Cupcakes and Lemon Meringue Pie
Tomorrow (Saturday) is another day, and this is what I have planned: Spinach, Garlic & Feta Quiche; Chicken, Cheddar & Broccoli Quiche, another big batch of Meringues (lots of egg whites to use up), Lemon Meringue Pie, and if I get to it, a batch of Mocha Cupcakes, a Raspberry Cream Cheese Coffeecake and The Most Extraordinary French Lemon Cream Tart!

Everybody is saying "Enough Already! No more Desserts!"  But you know what? They keep coming back for seconds and thirds!

                                                                         
In addition to all the baking, I'll also be joining in on a little fun at Erika Martin's Stampin' Mama Retreat tomorrow in Middlebury, Vermont. Her friend Jen has come in from Detroit to do a few classes on Photography ~ and I desperately need some coaching in that department! Now, I want to make this perfectly clear for those of you that think I'm a Scrapbooking & Stamping freak. I have a real problem with crafts! I have absolutely no patience whatsoever with any craft other than cooking and baking. I tried, I really did. The girls tried to show me how to cross-stitch, crochet and knit. I just don't get it. However, I do love the finished cards, boxes and all the other fun things that Erika does with paper crafts! So, I bribe her into making cards for me when my stash is getting low. Lazy, huh?

                                                                                 

When I get going again, I'll be posting about all the food and baked goods we created while we were in Vermont. I'll leave you with some of the photos I took while making these desserts. Until then, make sure <<<------ to look to the left of this post and check out some of my recipes on Suite101.

MOLASSES COOKIES ~ Just like Grandma used to make!

                                                      
MOLASSES COOKIES ~JUST LIKE GRANDMA USED TO MAKE!
I'm in Vermont for the next 10 days visiting family. This isn't just a vacation, it's a working vacation.  Just so you don't think I sit on my butt and do nothing all day while I'm on my trip...er...vacation, I'll show you what I did the last time we were here visiting.
I made five Cheesecakes, Muffins, Corn Chowder, a Veggie Casserole, and a great big Tiramisu, plus a ton of dinners. Yeah, I was pretty proud of myself too!
MOLASSES COOKIES

I went to "work" at the bakery with my son. OK, so he worked and I played! He made thousands of the most amazing Molasses Cookies you could ever imagine! Close your eyes. Gently pick up a cookie and feel how soft it is, how the sugar coating feels between your fingertips. By accident, some sugar sprinkles off on your shirt and you brush it away. You put the cookie to your nose, take a deep breath and inhale the spices ~ cinnamon, ginger and cloves. Your thoughts immediately turn to your Grandma's kitchen.I know mine does!

                                                                             
The sweet molasses makes you salivate ~ you can't help it ~ and you're tempted to wolf down the whole cookie in one bite...but you wait. With eyes still closed, you gingerly take your fist bite. Without warning, the flavors explode in your mouth! Brown sugar and buttery goodness with just the right zing of ginger. The texture is exactly what you expected it to be. Soft and moist with a chewy interior, the slightly crunchy outside rolled in sugar. Now, open your eyes and pour a glass of milk. Sit back, a Molasses Cookie in one hand and a glass of milk in the other, and tell me you don't think of your Grandma?

GRANDMA'S KITCHEN
My thoughts wander back to my Grandma's kitchen where this Molasses Cookie originated from. Her name was Doris and she was one of the sweetest Grandma's anyone could ever wish for. She taught me to love the smell of yeast, the feel of the dough in my hands, how to make a flaky pie crust and how to touch a cookie and know if it was done without burning my fingers!

                                                                               
THE SECRET INGREDIENT IS LOVE!
This Molasses Cookie has gone through major transformations since the recipe was passed down to me many years ago. When we started baking commercially, the cookie dough needed to be consistent from one batch to the next. We were making thousands of cookies at a time and the "Betty Crocker" approach clearly was not working for us.  The batches were huge and the ingredients had to be weighed instead of measuring 50 cups of flour and 10 Tablespoons of cinnamon! The recipe my son uses today in his bakery is quite different from the original. There is however, one thing that has never changed....love is still the secret ingredient! The intense feeling of pleasure I get when I bite into one of Grandma's Molasses Cookies is the memory that binds this family together.