For years, I have been making ginger people from a recipe that I found in Country Home Magazine in Dec./Jan. 2006. This recipe has one of our favorite holiday spices – ginger. When you think of ginger, you might be thinking of holiday beer, ginger ale or ginger bread. The first thing that comes to my mind is cookies! Ginger is a spice that you can grow in your yard. To be honest, I haven’t grown it yet, but I plan on it.
Here are the ingredients:
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup full flavored molasses
1/2 cup water
1 tbsp ground ginger
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground cloves
1 cup unsalted butter
4 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
In a large saucepan, stir with a wooden spoon and bring the following to a boil: sugar, molasses, water, ginger, cinnamon and cloves. Once the sugar dissolves, remove the saucepan from the heat and then add the butter until it melts. Now let it cool for 15 minutes.
Combine the flour, baking soda and salt in a bowl. Next add this mixture to the saucepan and stir until combined.
Now you have the dough. Spoon the dough into a gallon resealable plastic bag. Flatten the dough and seal. Refrigerate overnight.
Remove dough and divide into smaller sections. Put one section at a time between 2 pieces of parchment paper. Use a rolling pin to flatten out the dough to 1/4 inch. I typically use a gingerbread man or a snowman cookie cutter. Put the cutouts on a non-stick cookie sheet. Space them 1 inch apart.
Bake cookies at 375 degrees for 10 minutes. Let the cookies cool for 5 minutes on the sheet and then transfer to a cooling rack.
After the cookies are cooled, then I use Betty Crocker Cookie Icing that hardens quickly. While I like this brand, I haven’t been able to find it in black.
While my outlines are not perfect, the cookies sure taste yummy!
Another favorite ginger cookie is a Ginger Snap.
