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| Photo by Flickr user endless beauty |
The gift guides are over for the year, I didn't mean to end them abruptly - I knew I was going to wrap up this week, but i guess I should have told you.
Thank you so so much for all of the kind messages about the guides, I was delighted to lend a hand in your holiday shopping and I hope everyone loves your gifts. If not you can write me and tell me that my digi-ninja was not enough ninja or my homebody too homely.
Back to cookies, I am about to share the absolute best, hands-down fabulous gingerbread recipe - if you're into that kind of thing. It's not really mine, it's Martha's - and it's delish.
Gingerbread MEN (and ladies, and donkeys - at our house)
3 1/2 c. Flour
1 1/2 tsp. Baking soda
1/4 tsp. Salt
1 1/4 tsp. Ground cinnamon
1 1/4 tsp. Ground ginger
1 1/4 tsp. Ground allspice
1/4 tsp. Ground cloves
2 sticks unsalted butter room temp
3/4 c. Sugar
3/4 c. Brown sugar
1 tbs. + 1 tsp. Grated ginger
1 lg. Egg
1/4 c. Molasses
Combine first seven ingredients in a large bowl and whisk together.
In the bowl of an electric mixer (or another large bowl) cream together butter and two sugars with fresh ginger until light and fluffy. Add egg and molasses, mix until combined
Add dry ingredients gradually just until combined- do not over mix.
Split dough in half and flatten into disks - cover in plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.
Remove dough from fridge and allow to soften slightly - so it doesn't crack when rolled. Flour work surface and rolling pin- roll out dough until 1/4 inch thick. Place dough on cookie sheet and stick in the freezer until frozen stiff.
Use cookie cutters and work quickly cutting - place cookies on parchment lined baking sheet and directly into 350* oven - if dough has gone soft - re-freeze cut cookies until stiff.
Bake cookies until lightly browner - about 12 minutes, rotating half-way through.
Follow the same process with the rest of the dough- re-rolling scraps and cutting cookies until a small enough amount of dough remains that you can justify eating it raw because you really can't fit another cookie cutter on it.
This is round two of my holiday baking - and no one should do two rounds of holiday baking. Also on the list, biscochitos, Christmas crack, goofballs and more...It's a good thing that leggings are acceptable enough to be my life uniform from December until April.
