My mom gave me about 30 pomegranates from her tree this year. We’ve been eating them but we still had about 25 of them left. At this rate, they would all go bad before I could even get to them. I did what any level-headed person would do: go online and see what I can make with them. It looks like pomegranate molasses was something people made with pom juice. So there I was, breaking apart 25 pomegranates for about an hour. Then blending and straining them for the juice.
The seeds yielded about 4 cups of juice overall. I threw that into a thick bottomed pot and started reducing it down for about an hour to concentrate the pomegranate flavor a bit. Then I added 3 tablespoons of fresh lemon juice and 1 cup raw sugar and simmered for about 30-45 minutes until thick in consistency. You can add more sugar if you want to but I like the tartness from the pomegranates. Now I had about 2 cups of pomegranate molasses and no idea what to do with it. We played around with the idea of using it as a glaze for turkey but we got a bit lazy to glaze the turkey. Internet to the rescue again and I’m on a mission to turn the pomegranate molasses into cookies.
So I made a boo boo with this recipe. First off, I adapted this recipe from the Chewy Molasses Cookies recipe by Bon Appetit. I’m not super familiar with cooking with molasses and had no idea what I was doing. Will pomegranate molasses work vs regular molasses (the pH is different: pomegranate pH is around a 2 and molasses is between 5 and 7)? I attempted it anyways and in my dazed state, I accidentally used baking powder instead of baking soda. Claire Saffitz of Bon Appetit wrote a very informative article two years ago between the difference of these two leaveners and spoiler alert: they are not interchangeable.
Instead of making a cookie that is chewy and fluffy and spread out due to a chemical process between the molasses and baking soda (which I didn’t have since I used baking powder), I made a totally different type of cookie that turned out pretty damn good if I don’t say so myself lol. Accidents are sometimes not a bad thing. These “cookies” have a crumbly cake-like texture. They didn’t spread but stayed this cute little round dome shape. I had some good cracks in it like a typical molasses cookie and it looked quite pretty. If I had known the color was just going to be brown, I might have split the dough into two and put in red and green food coloring to make them more Christmas. I was very pleased with the flavors too: nice tartness from the pomegranate, sweet from the sugar, and just a hint of heat from the ginger. Super yummy with a hot cup of tea.
Pomegranate Molasses and Ginger Cookies
Ingredients
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons ground ginger
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 egg
- 1 stick unsalted butter, melted and cooled
- 1/4 cup granulated sugar
- 1/4 cup dark brown sugar, packed
- 1/2 cup pomegranate molasses
- Turbinado sugar, for rolling
Directions
- Step 1 Preheat oven to 375F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Step 2 In a small bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, ginger, and salt.
- Step 3 In a large bowl, whisk egg, butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar, and molasses until well incorporated.
- Step 4 Add the dry ingredients into the wet and mix until complete combined with no streaks of dry dough.
- Step 5 Roll 1 tablespoon sized balls of dough into rounds and coat with turbinado sugar. Place on the baking sheet with about 1 inch space between each cookie.
- Step 6 Bake for about 15 minutes.
- Step 7 Cool completely on a cooling rack.
You must be logged in to post a comment.