Whole Wheat Sugar Cookies

Did you know that you can make your own brown sugar at home??? I read this in Alton Brown's cookbook yesterday. You mix 1/2 tablespoon of molasses with 1 cup of white sugar. That is the way they actually make most brown sugar these days anyway. So...yeah, interesting. Then, today I wanted to make some cookies and the only supplies we had on hand would have to be for sugar cookies, so I went looking for a recipe online. I found a great one right away that actually uses 100% whole wheat flour..not even mixing it with regular white flour!

I start to gather my ingredients and low and behold...I am OUT of brown sugar. The Christmas stock up finally ran out! What to do!!!! Hey...I still do have some molasses from my Christmas baking...so...

I gave it a try. It actually tasted great and was great in the recipe also! Who knew!? It takes a good bit of mashing/mixing/blending to get the molasses incorporated all in the white sugar, but it is so neat to try. I want to try the recipe now with "real" brown sugar to see how it compares...

Anyway, on to the recipe. It really turned out great. They taste a little more along the lines of a gingersnap even though they don't have ginger in them. Not sure why..they do have nutmeg. It isn't overly spicy tasting though, very mellow actually. Delicious! I am not going to list the specifics because if you have ever made cookies a few times then you should know how this all comes together. It's the "cream" method if you happen to have read Alton Brown's cookbooks. I love love LOVE this cookbook. It really teaches you how the different reactions in baking happen and why...in an easy way. I have learned so much from this cookbook about baking and actually chemistry too!

Here's the list of ingredients:

1 cup brown sugar
1/2 c. butter
1 egg
2 T. milk
1/4 t. vanilla
2 cups of whole wheat flour
1 t. baking powder
1/2 t. baking soda
1/4 t. salt
1 T orange peel (I did not have oranges today, so I didn't use this, I did throw in a SMIDGE of almond extract just because I figured it needed some kind of flavor or something, I bet it would be good though!)
1/4 t. nutmeg

Prepare dough. Roll balls in granulated sugar before placing on cookie sheet. Bake at 375 for 9-10 min.

YUMMY!!!