Spice cookies- three recipes in review

Spice cookies.  Who doesn't like a good pumpkin spice cookie when the leaves turn or a ginger bread cookie come Christmas?  Unfortunately I've had only bad experiences with this class of cookie in the past- whether the molasses is too strong, spices aren't right, or the texture is off, something has always seemed to go wrong.  I tried again this fall with a variety of recipes with mixed results, but here they are:

Pumpkin molasses cookies
When I first started Pinterest I had no idea that there were galleries of "Pinterest Fails" and in my naive state was willing to try any recipe I came across.  Some were wonderful (like the caramel apple sugar cookies) and some were not.  Such as this one.

When I first saw this recipe, the weather was changing and anything pumpkin sounded fantastic.  A quick glance at the recipe and looked like a pretty standard recipe.   I followed the directions as written and I was even patient and let the dough chill longer than the required time.

The resulting cookie was extremely flat and floppy.  It never set the way the recipe suggested it would, and they were extremely difficult to get off the pan.  They tasted fine, but who wants to eat a cookie that looks more like a pancake?  I'm not sure if it was me or the recipe, but I won't be trying this one again any time soon.




Pumpkin Spice Cookies
This is another Pinterest recipe, but it went over much better than the last one.  The cookie itself still wasn't what I wanted though.  For one thing, they were way too soft- still almost cake-like. They also turned out really domed, which made them difficult to frost.  Other than that they were great.  The maple icing turned out well too.  I'm not sure how to fix the doming issue, but I would probably try these again.




Break Your Water Cookies
As you can probably guess by the title, I was a little desperate and very done being pregnant when I made these (did I mention Elaine was a week over-due?) .  Don't let it throw you off though- these are actually the dark horse winners of this spice cookie show-down.

 These cookies had it all- flavor, texture, looks.  They were just barely crunchy on the outside with the soft center associated with spice cookies.  They stayed that way too, which is always nice.  They were definitely spicy, but not in an over-whelming way, and it all worked well with the molasses flavor.

I did eat about a dozen of these a few days before going into labor, and regardless of whether they helped or not, it was a pleasant way to try to move things along.  I brought these to work and a family gathering and everyone agreed they were great.