KB Son #1 loves Gingerbread Men at Xmas time. I’ve not made them often and the recipe I first tried was “meh”. This year (2024) they were on his wish list. I recall that his aunt made great gingerbread men that made him happy. Her daughter still had the recipe. It was from an old Good Housekeeping magazine.
The dough comes together fast (needs only 1 hour of refrigeration) and turns out great. I’ll never again hesitate to make these, although when it comes to decorating I remain hopeless. (I include a photo of the original recipe below. Note that I did not add/use dried currants.)
Getting Ready
get molasses suited for baking
be sure you have ground cloves, ginger, cinnamon
best to grate fresh nutmeg
get shortening
prepare cookie sheets with parchment
preheat oven to 350F
1/2 cup shortening
1/2 cup molasses
1 egg
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1.5 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
This could be called a one-bowl recipe, but I turned it into 2 bowls - one for the “wet” ingredients and one for the dry.
I melt the shortening just a bit to make it easier to mix it with the molasses and egg.
Into a large bowl measure all the dry ingredients. With a mixer at medium speed, beat the ingredients until well mixed. Cover and refrigerate for one hour.
On a lightly floured surface with a floured rolling pin roll out the chilled dough to 1/8 inch thickness. (This seems thin, but the cookies do puff up a bit.) See Notes re a rolling pin tip.
Use your favourite cookie cutter. Re-roll trimmings to cut more cookies. Place the cookies a half inch apart on cookie sheets. Bake in an oven preheated to 350 F for 8 minutes. (The original recipe says “until they are browned” - huh???) Cool before decorating. Thes freeze well and store well in a closed tin kept in a cool place.
In one photo, you’ll see adorable wee cookies - I baked those for 6 minutes.
[The wee cookie cutters were clever - one push to cut the cookie and a second to make the face, button, and outline imprint. ]
Notes and Tips...
Molasses—Crosby’s is a proud Canadian Molasses company. Although I can offer no direct experience with outcomes using different types of molasses, Crosby’s website explains the differences. While it seems that their “Cooking” molasses may be best for cookies, I have never seen that at my grocers. I use their Fancy Molasses.
Nutmeg - there seems to be a consensus that while nutmeg is a great addition to many recipes it is best to grate it fresh.
Rolling Pin - consider getting a rolling pin that has rings you add onto each end to help you ensure that the dough is of equal thickness and the thickness you desire. Search on Amazon for an adjustable rolling pin.
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