**This is a public service announcement**
**These cookies are ADDICTIVE!!!**
No seriously, they are.
They disappear immediately from our house. I think the problem is that you know they are cookies, but they don't scream "cookies" at you. There is no chocolate, there are no M&Ms, no nuts, no frosting, they're practically healthy for you! Lol, well I wish they were. But I'm just trying to warn you, you will eat these for breakfast, and lunch, and snack and dinner and midnight snack and and and just be careful! Even if you're so stuffed from Christmas cookies that you can't think straight.
Ok.
Here's the recipe.
Don't say you weren't forewarned.
Here are the ingredients: Flour, baking soda, cinnamon, salt, ginger, allspice, cloves, pepper, vegetable shortening, butter, brown sugar, molasses, and an egg.
Start with the dry ingredients:
Put them all in a bowl, and mix with a whisk (this is so you don't have to sift them, because I think sifting is a waste of time, and I don't exactly own a sifter. Honestly if anyone tells you that sifting makes your baked goods fluffier when you're just going to mix them in a mixer anyway, question their motives. They're just trying to make you waste time!)
Next, add the butter and the shortening to the mixer and beat them until they are fully mixed together and creamy. Scrape down the sides of the bowl.
Then measure out half a cup of brown sugar (be sure to measure it in a one cup measuring device because you are too lazy/your hands are messy and you don't want to walk across the kitchen and get the half cup measuring device. Hey, you're saving dishes. (You're welcome dad!). Add the sugar to the creamed butter and shortening and mix it together.
Now add the egg and molasses to the sugar/butter/shortening mixture and mix together. Now let's be clear, the recipe doesn't call for vanilla, but that doesn't mean you can't add it, right?! I mean EVERY baked good that I make includes vanilla, since vanilla is the elixir of life. But you don't have to add vanilla if you don't want to. But if you were going to, now would be the time to add it.
Here's what it looks like when it's all mixed.
Now, by hand, mix in the flour. Don't worry about getting it all incorporated with a spoon because that's hard. It's just as easy to mix it mostly together, then dump it out onto the counter and knead it all together.
Then, divide the dough into two balls and put the balls into two bags.
Now here's my trick. The dough needs to go into the fridge/freezer if you're impatient like me and chill. Well it's hard to chill a ball all the way through since it's four inches thick. If you instead flatten the dough in the bag it's going to be only half an inch thick and will chill faster. Again I'm impatient and want to make the cookies pretty much as soon as I make the dough!
When the dough is done chilling (about an hour or so or up to a few days if you really plan ahead. Which I do not) take it out of the freezer so you can roll it out. Here is the other part of my trick. Have you ever tried to roll out a chilled ball of dough? Doesn't work too well does it. It splits apart and you get these big cracks where you have to press the dough back together. The beauty of flattening the dough when it was warm and then chilling it, is that the rolling out portion is almost done! All you have to do is cut the bag off the dough.
Then roll it out flat, and then cut pretty shapes in it. Notice I'm using flowers and bunnies and ducks because these gingerbread cookies are not just for Christmas time!
Then bake the cookies at 350 degrees for 10 to 12 minutes.
They'll come out of the oven and smell heavenly.
Now you can leave them plain, but I like to mix some powdered sugar and water and make a frosting/glaze to put on top. It keeps the cookies moist and not stale for a lot longer. Not that they will last that long . . . but dang it people, everything tastes better with frosting!
Here are the ingredients (recipe courtesy of Food Network.com)
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp cinnamon
3/4 tsp ginger
1/2 tsp allspice
1/2 tsp cloves
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper (trust me you can't even taste it)
8 tbs butter
1/4 cup shortening
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
2/3 cup molasses
1 egg
Btw I like to make these before I go on trips or anyone I know goes on trips because they have ginger in them and ginger is supposed to calm your stomach right? So you're in a new place and the car ride or the plane flight turbulence or ok you get the point. But they're awesome please make them soon!
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