Is it Molasses or Sorghum?

This is a well loved jar of Sorghum!

I love it on warm biscuits, warm toast, warm biscuits, off my fingers, warm toast…..a little taste off the spoon….

This stuff is so good that even the place of “Hand Thrown Rolls” sells their version of molasses in their gift shop. For those that are not from Missouri, the place is called Lamberts. While you are eating a waiter comes out of the kitchen with hot rolls, all you have to do is raise your hand and he/she will throw you one. Catching them is another story.

My Mom tells the story of a man that would barter his “sorghum making services” in exchange for vegetables, milk and eggs. As kids they called him the Sugar Man. He would travel to all the local farms at the right time when the sorghum was ready to be harvested. He would take the long canes of sorghum and squeeze the juice out of them with a stone wheel that was powered by a mule. The sap that came out of the sorghum was boiled down to make molasses or sorghum? It would be sorghum.

A lot of people use the name molasses and sorghum interchangeable….includeing me. I grew up eating sorghum and perfer it over molasses, most of the time…

Confusing uh?

Molasses is made from sugar cane and not sorgum cane. You can have three different flavors of molasses due to the number of times you boil the sapp. Blackstrap (which is bittersweet tasting) is the last boiling. The first boiling of molasses is the sweetest. The problem is, you have to find somewhere to buy the sweet tasting one. You can find blackstrap in the grocery stores but I would not use blackstrap on my biscuit. Maybe that is just me.

I am a molasses and sorghum snob!

I found a farmers market in the big town of Springfield that sells sorghum that taste just like the sorghum my grandma would spoon out of a mason jar. I use it in my baking, including my molasses cookies, just cause I like too.

So tonight I made molasses cookies useing sorghum instead. Are they molasses cookies or sorghum cookies?

You decide!

Right now my house is filled with the smell of cinnamon, cloves, ginger, vanilla and sorghum from the cookies I just took right out of the oven. I will post the recipe tomorrow with pictures.