Gingerbread Men (and women!)

One of our family's things that we like to do each year for Missions Conference is to make a plate of cookies for the missionary families that come to our church so they can have something good to munch on while traveling from our church's missions conference. My kids actually came up with that idea, and I thought it was a great idea. I think we've been doing it for like 5 years or so now. It is one way in which they can be a blessing to God's servants.

This year, we did gingerbread cookies. We have a great gingerbread recipe that we enjoy using, and most people say it's the best gingerbread they ever had. I don't know about that--I had some awesome gingerbread when I used to live in Austria, and this recipe is partly based on gingerbread I made as an Au Pair in Salzburg.

This one makes about 3-4 dozen large cookies, or 5-6 dozen smaller ones. I usually cut the recipe in half if I am making smaller cookies only, but it helps to have all of this extra dough when working with a large ginger bread boy and girl cookie cutter, or when making a gingerbread house.

Start off by beating :

• 2c brown sugar
• 2/3 c. butter or margarine
• 1 1/2c cold water
• 3 c. molasses
• 3t baking soda
• 1T ginger
• 1t allspice
• 2t cinnamon
• 1 t cloves
• pinch of salt

stir in:
14 c. of all purpose flour or soft wheat flour (pastry or graham).

it will be a thick dough.

Wrap it well, and chill for about 2 hours or overnight. I usually will make this one night, and chill it overnight.

Preheat your oven to 350, and roll out your dough on a floured board. You're going to need to work in small batches. the dough is going to be about 1/4 " thick. Cut them with a floured cutter. Try to do cookies of the same basic size at the same time so that they bake evenly. In other words, don't make a huge gingerbread boy, and then a small heart, as the smaller cookie will be done before the rest are.

Bake for about 12 minutes, and let it cool on a rack.

We then decorate our cookies with a cake decorator tool (you can use a pastry bag or the decorator gun like the one we have here from Wilton), and regular vanilla frosting. Esther (age 9) is here decorating the cookies. The nice thing about the decorator thing is that it is easy for kids to use.

You can also use this recipe to make a gingerbread house, which I'll write about another time!