I recently read about this exercise that asks you to make, draw or render a four-foot-tall totem pole of your life, including words, letters, maps, photos, objects, signs, etc.

I thought about it for a bit and decided a molasses cookie was an apt emblem for the warm and cozy parts of my childhood.

When I bake molasses cookies I’m transported. I’m a child standing on a chair at the kitchen counter helping my mother make a batch. When I smell them baking it’s as though I’m walking through the back door of our home on Janice Street and my mother is just pulling of sheet of them from the oven. The scent of cinnamon, cloves, ginger and nutmeg fills the air.

Funnily enough, in the early nineties I happened upon a cookie recipe not unlike the one my mother used. It came from an unlikely source - a 12th century medieval nun named Hildegarde of Bingen.

Hildegarde recommends you eat her spice cookies at least once a day to help lift melancholia, open your heart and bring you a sense of cheerfulness and joy. In particular, she credits nutmeg for the cookies’ positive effects. She writes,

“Nutmeg has great heat and good moderation in its powers. If a person eats nutmeg, it will open up your heart, make your judgment free from obstruction and give you a good disposition. Take some nutmeg and an equal weight of cinnamon and a bit of cloves, and pulverize them. Then make small cakes with this and fine whole wheat flour and water. Eat them often. It will calm all bitterness of the heart and mind, open your heart and impaired senses, and make your mind cheerful. It purifies your senses and diminishes all harmful humors in you. It gives good liquid to your blood and makes you strong.”

Here’s my updated version, a molasses cookie inspired by my mother and a 12th century mystic, spiced with cinnamon, cloves, ginger and nutmeg too. May the warm spicy goodness of these cookies help banish any gloom and elevate your mood in the days ahead.

Spicy Molasses Cookies

1/4 cup coconut oil or butter

1/4 cup coconut sugar

1/4 cup cane sugar

I egg, slightly beaten

1/4 cup black strap molasses

1 cup spelt flour or all purpose flour

1 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp ground cloves

1 tbsp fresh ginger, finely chopped or grated OR 1 tsp dried ground ginger

1/2 tsp ground nutmeg, freshly ground if possible

extra sugar for rolling in (optional)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Cream the oil, coconut sugar and cane sugar until creamy. If using freshly grated ginger, add it here.

Add the beaten egg and molasses, and mix until combined well.

Mix the dry ingredients in a bowl.

Combine wet and dry.

Place the cookie dough in the fridge for at least 30 minutes or until the dough is easy to handle. It also helps to run your hands under cold water before rolling the cookie dough.

Roll equal sized portions of the dough into 1-inch balls.

Roll each ball in sugar to coat.

Place on the cookie sheet and flatten each ball with your hand or the bottom of a glass.

Bake for 10 minutes, until cookies begin to crack on top.

Remove and let cool.

Store in an airtight container.

Notes:

I baked this batch a little on the long side so they have a nice crunch without being too crunchy. If you want more chew than crunch, consider removing them from the oven just before they are finished baking and let them rest on the hot sheet for a couple more minutes.

If you don’t have any coconut sugar you can substitute regular sugar.