There is a lot of controversy over whether molasses is paleo or not, and I’ll give a brief rundown on what molasses is and you can decide for yourself. 

Molasses is juice extracted from sugarcane and then boiled down until the sugar crystalizes and evaporates out. The goal of boiling down the sugar cane is to remove as much sugar as possible with each successive cycle. A typical molasses with undergo 1-3 cycles, with each cycle removing more sugar and creating a molasses in varying degrees of color, sweetness and nutritional content. Blackstrap molasses is the darkest molasses and has undergone the most cycles of boiling out the sugar, it is the strongest in taste and most nutrient dense. 

For this particular recipe I used a medium dark molasses (not blackstrap), but if you are following and adhering to a strict paleo diet then the blackstrap would probably be considered the most paleo version given my research although most people consider all molasses to be paleo. Just note that blackstrap molasses is highly concentrated and will have a deep, spicy and bitter taste to it which has not been tested with these cookies.