Making Gingerbread

On Friday Buddy and I finally tried the Gingerbread Cookie recipe I mentioned the other day.

I picked this particular recipe to try because it did not require chilling before being rolled out. I was also glad that I could use shortening and not softened butter. We keep the temp a bit cool in our house during the day, and frankly our butter stays pretty solid at room temperature. The fact that the reviews stated that the dough was easy to work with was another selling point. *

It was sort of an interesting process-first you boil the molasses, sugar and spices together on the stove into this thick bubbly soup, then you take it off the burner add the baking soda (Whoa! Foam!~Buddy thought that was cool!), then mix in and melt the shortening, then stir in the egg. Lastly you mix in the flour. I had to transfer mine from the pot to a bowl to do this-my pot wasn’t big enough to add over 3 cups of flour too.

Mine came out sort of crumbly-I think when I transfered it from the pot to the bowl I lost enough of the moist stuff to make a difference. Also believe it or not the amount of moisture your flour has in it can affect these sorts of recipes as well!

So when I got to the “kneading” part, I simply stuck my hand under the faucet, shook it off a little bit, and then rubbed my damp hand across the dough before kneading. Doing this two or three times during the kneading process gave me perfect dough!

Buddy and I had a good time cutting out various shapes with the cookie cutters. Along with the traditional Christmas shapes there were footballs, acorns, cars. . . .well you get the idea. I was worried that the smaller shapes would cook faster than the big ones-so I checked early. To my amazement they were fine cooking just as long as the bigger shapes.

I found a simple royal icing recipe that made a small batch-1 room temp egg white beat on high**, 2 1/2 cups sifted powdered sugar added in on low (a bit at a time please) then 1/4 tsp almond flavoring and 1/4 tsp butter flavoring (or all almond). Turn to high and beat until stiff. You can thin it with a TBS or two of milk if you need to. I did this, and although the frosting was great for spreading, it was a tad on the thin side for piping decorations. Next time I’ll add a bit less. I split the icing into 3 very small batches-one left white, one dyed green, and one dyed red.

When Princess got home from school we commenced with the decorating. Lots of fun was had by all! We even managed to get most of the icing on the cookies. I used the disposable icing bags I have (I bought a box of 50 a couple of years ago-we use them when we make our gingerbread houses) and the reusable tips. I find these to be very handy things to have-especially since I have to bake and decorate a Barbie cake every April .

I think they turned out beautifully. Even though we are rationing them, I don’t think they will last until Christmas Eve. Buddy has already informed me that we have to make more for Santa!

*Note: This is one of the reasons I love Recipezaar for finding recipes-the reviews from folks who have tried it. When you have 23 folks all saying that they loved the recipe and had it work out well. . . .chances are it’s probably decent!

**Note: If you are one of those folks who are squeamish about using raw egg white, you can buy powdered egg whites to use in these sorts of recipes. Wilton makes some that you can usually find at the cake decorating section of your craft store or big box store-its around $6 for a jar but it should last a long, long time.

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