Gingerbread Cookies

During the Christmas Season, I also made gingerbread men cookies. I purchased the cookie cutter at Eggshells Kitchen Co. in Little Rock. At that time they only had a gingerbread man cookie cutter, but I was in there recently and they had a gingerbread woman, so of course I had to get one! I really like these cookie cutters because they are a good size, not too small but not too big.

The recipe I used I found on cooks.com. It's probably the simplest gingerbread cookie recipe I've ever seen.

GINGERBREAD MEN COOKIES

2 3/4 cup of flour
1/2 tsp. of soda
1 tsp. of ginger
1/2 tsp. of cinnamon
1/2 tsp. of salt
1/2 cup of shortening
1/4 cup of brown sugar
3/4 cup of molasses
1 beaten egg
1 tsp. of hot water
1 tsp. of vinegar

Mix all ingredients. Roll onto a well floured surface. Cut into gingerbread men. Place on a well greased cookie sheet dusted with flour. Bake at 350 degrees until brown, about 8 minutes or so, depending on the oven.

After letting the gingerbread men cool on a cooling rack I began to ice them. I didn't really ice them like I did the Christmas trees, because gingerbread cookies are not covered in icing (much to the disappointment of some people). Instead, I used a round tip and icing bag with vanilla icing and outlined the cookies and put icing dots down the middle in order to make sure that the redhots could stick. You can't have gingerbread cookies without redhots!

Make sure you use plenty of flour when you are rolling out the dough and putting the cookies onto the baking sheet, because this dough becomes sticky very quickly. As you can tell, some of these gingerbread men are not perfect. Some look like they are leaping through the air or doing a weird dance move. That's because when I was transferring them to the baking sheet their arms or legs landed differently (if that makes any sense). But I kind of like it. It makes them unique. Next year keep an eye out for the most adorable gingerbread women! I wish I had had that cookie cutter this year, but I couldn't find the perfect one and I didn't want to settle for a cookie cutter that was not the same size as the gingerbread man, because that just wouldn't be right.