Spicy Gingerbread Cookies
After many of you asked for the recipe yesterday I figured I’d do a new post with my gingerbread recipe (I have it on my blog from a few years ago). These cookies aren’t you typical gingerbread men/women. If you don’t like spicy things, you will not like this version. This recipe has as least double the spices of most recipes and I always use blackstrap molasses to make the flavor even stronger. If you’re a fan of spicy gingerbread you will really appreciate the flavor in this version.
One of my favorite things about these gingerbread cookies is that they’re not too sweet. If you like your cookies sweeter you can ice them, but I think they’re perfect as is. As with most spicy baked items, they’re twice as good the next day and seem to get better with age. They also keep well compared to a lot of cookies so they make a great option for mailing (I just sent some to a family member in Afghanistan). Bake up some of these and some snickerdoodles and send them to a service member you know, they’ll appreciate the holiday cheer!
MOM’S SPICY GINGERBREAD COOKIES
1 1/2 (or 12 ounces) cups dark molasses *I use blackstrap
1 cup packed dark brown sugar (I use regular sugar)
1/2 cup cold water
1/3 cup butter
1 egg
6 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons allspice (freshly ground is best)
4 teaspoons ginger
1 teaspoon cloves
2 teaspoons cinnamon
Mix molasses, brown sugar, egg, water and butter. Mix in remaining ingredients. Cover and refrigerate at least 2 hours.
Heat oven to 350. Roll dough 1/4 inch thick on floured* board. Cut with floured cookie cutter. Place about 2 inches apart on lightly greased cookie sheet. Bake until no indentation remains when touched, 10 to 12 minutes; cool. *TIP* If you like chewy cookies use confectioners sugar instead of flour when rolling out your dough
Note: Can roll dough 1/2 inch thick and cut with 2 1/2 inch round cookie cutter. Place about 1 1/2 inches apart on lightly greased cookie sheet. Bake about 15 minutes.
I use all organic ingredients when I make this, since we’re organic eaters. All of my organic spices come from Mountain Rose Herbs, and I get my flour/sugar from a local co-op in big 25 lb bags. This recipe is pretty good for you as far as cookies go, the blackstrap molasses will give you a healthy dose of iron, manganese, copper, potassium, calcium, magnesium, B6 and many more nutrients.
All of the various spices added to the cookies are also super healthy and contain all kinds of vitamins, minerals and trace elements. Here are links for the health benefits of the various spices: cinnamon, cloves, ginger, and allspice. A lot of these spices actually help your body fight off the colds and flu, what a wonderfully tasty way to do so. If you want to make the recipe even healthier try swapping out some of the flour for white whole wheat flour. I’ve successfully swapped out half of of the flour for freshly ground soft wheat flour.
I was going to do gingerbread cookies as my Friday Favorite this week since they’re my favorite cookie, but I decided to write about them today. I will willingly pass over any other kind of cookie out there for a spicy gingerbread man. Second in line for my favorite cookie is the Date Pinwheel cookie, after that spritz or cookie press cookies, and most things after that I don’t eat because I’m not a big fan. My least favorite cookie has to be butter cookies, perhaps it’s the icing, I’ve never been a fan of them even when I was a kid.
What’s your favorite holiday cookie? second favorite? third?
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Simply Delicious Gifts
I have a friend who always tells me, “you can just make me a bunch of these for Christmas” whenever she eats one of my gingerbread cookies (she doesn’t cook or I’d just give her the recipe). I’ve always made her something instead, last year it was a nice tree skirt to match her simple mission decor. This year however, I decided I’d finally do it. She gets one of my calendars of course, but I thought a big box of gingerbread cookies would be a wonderful addition to that gift.
I considered doing a cookie of the month club and making her a batch of different cookies each month throughout the coming year, but then I decided I’d rather just go all out and make her 365 gingerbread cookies – one every day for 2011. I set to work yesterday afternoon, mixing, rolling, cutting, and baking 365 little gingerbread people. I packaged them up in the afternoon. One of my favorite parts of making homemade/handmade gifts is coming up with creative tags.
It’s a simple and practical gift, it only took me a few hours to make, and yet it’s something she’ll enjoy. Not to mention she loves the fact that the gift isn’t anything she feels she needs to keep since she’s not big on having unnecessary things in her home. It’s a win-win, I spend time doing something I enjoy, she gets to enjoy eating all the little gingerbread people she loves so much. There are so many options for practical gifts like soup, home canned jams for the mom that’s too busy to can her own, or some take and bake cinnamon rolls for friends & family to enjoy on Christmas morning.
What would be your idea of the perfect edible gift?
**Recipe for Gingerbread Cookies**
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Quote of the Day: Katherine S. White
“From December to March,
there are for many of us three gardens:
the garden outdoors,
the garden of pots and bowls in the house,
and the garden of the mind’s eye.”
– Katherine S. White
When I read this quote I just loved it. I thought about my three gardens. The garden outdoors is covered in snow, but that doesn’t mean that nothing is growing. I’ve got hoop houses protecting some greens and I just harvested some beets last week.
The garden indoors thrives all year long, but it’s even more lush in the winter. I have a corner of the basement filled with pots of herbs, fig trees and other tender plants. My living room looks like a greenhouse at the moment, it’s brimming with dwarf citrus and other tropicals as is the floor in front of my sliding glass doors in the dining room. I just bought a beautiful little jade plant at the farmer’s market last week for my dining room table. One of the things I love about indoor plants is that they help keep the air clean. No spending money on air cleaners.
The garden in my mind’s eye thrives after the holidays are over. I’ve been getting seed catalogs in the mail (is it me or do they come earlier every year, soon we’ll be getting them in August). I don’t look at these quite yet, I stow them away for those dark days in January.
I actually enjoy the down time winter offers for the northern gardener. I spend a lot of time during the winter months reading gardening books, learning more about organic gardening and soil buildings, dreaming of new plants while flipping through glossy gardening books and trying to figure out what new and interesting vegetables I’ll be growing this coming season.
How are you three gardens doing?
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My Early Gardening Years
My mom was going through a box of photos that she got from my grandma’s house this summer and she came across these photos of me in my early gardening years. I thought you’d enjoy seeing these.
Don’t you just love this stylish gardening outfit! I still get that dirty when working outside and of course I still always wear sandals in the garden. (and my mom still grow amaryllises this lovely every year)
No doubt in the photo below I’m explaining the finer points of proper watering to my older sister. Mr Chiots laughed and said, “You still hold your watering can like that.”
My mom used to let me pick out flowers when we’d go to the greenhouse every spring, I remember choosing some cockscomb one year. I also have fond memories of leafing through seed catalogs to pick out “my vegetables” to grow each year in the edible garden. For some reason they were always blue and they never grew very well, but that never stopped me from picking something blue the next year. That little flowered watering can in the first photo was my favorite, I loved watering with it. I also remember using the old watering can that I currently have on my front porch for holiday decor. Watering must have been my favorite gardening activity as a girl.
Were you a gardener when you were young? Do you remember planting, watering and spending time in the garden?
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Spreading Some Holiday Cheer
Growing up my mom always made tons of Christmas cookies, caramels and other goodies and sent a big plate full to each neighbor. We’ve done something similar since we moved in here. I’m not much of a cookie maker when it comes to the holidays, I prefer chocolates and other things like caramel corn. We also don’t stop at the neighbors when spreading delicious holiday cheer. We take goodies for everyone at the Post Office, the library and our small town local bank. Of course we live in a small town, so each of these place only has 4-7 employees.
I enjoy doing this because it shows all those people that we talk to each week that we appreciate the service they provide and that they go out of their way to do their jobs well. The ladies at the library will hold new books for us that they know we’ll like, our UPS man always delivers our packages in great shape and always has a treat for the Chiots, the friendly post office workers are always ready to chat, and the ladies at the bank always have treats for the Chiots in the drive-thru.
Do you hand out any kind of goodies to neighbors and other people like the mailman?
