I was thinking about this recipe last night and how much ‘I’ enjoyed this cookie, and our son, Phillip, did not! The flavors in this dough are excellent, the spices are robust and the little ‘men’ don’t need icing if you desire to leave them ‘undressed’. They are great with a glass of egg nog or a cup of hot chocolate of coffee. Another great quality is what good travelers they are.
In the past few days I’ve been everywhere it seems, and consumed food from a hospital cafeteria, a college campus, fast food and home again. If I had to rank them in order of preference it would be leftovers at home, college campus, hospital cafeteria and lastly fast food. I’m back at the office now and ready to finish out the last minute shopping and holiday plans.
I like to repeat the story of the Gingerbread Men from years past, because it’s such a hoot. As a mom it was a revelation/surprise.
Enjoy the background on these little gems.
Some of my readers are familiar with my gingerbread men story. Every year for Christmas Eve I would make these lovely tasting cookies for Phillip to leave for Santa under the tree. It was around 3rd or 4th grade that Phillip turned to me one day and said: ‘Mom, I think I should tell you that I don’t like those gingerbread men.’ I about fell out of my chair. Here I had made sure that every Christmas Eve I made them just for his Santa tray! If I would have known he wanted chocolate chip it would have been so much easier! All that dough rolling and cutting out when I could have been doing drop cookies, dear me!
The funny part of this is that I love this recipe. The flavors of Christmas are so abundant and it just bursts with holiday spirit. These babies even stood the ‘Uhrig test’ of NO icing. I have to admit I miss making these delicious cookies.
I tried to create lots of memories for our son during the holidays and one culinary treat was to make sure we had 1-2 tins of Royal Dansk cookies. It’s so important to create positive memories for our children and grandchildren. Sometimes for myself it’s the simply things that bring back warm toasty feelings: homemade cocoa after a sledding day, eggnog by Anderson/Erickson Dairy, Manor Fruitcakes, Grandma’s cookies with red & green jellies, real fir trees, decorating with fresh cedar, dressing up like elves and Christmas caroling, Christmas Eve services at church and family gatherings.
These next two weeks there’s lots of elfing yet to accomplish. I ‘try’ to wrap as I go so I don’t have a huge pile up, in the days just before.
I hope you can find time to make these delicious spicy gingerbread men. Enjoy the season my friends and treasure each and every memory making event. Simply yours, The Covered Dish.
Gingerbread Men
1 cup butter, softened
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 cup light molasses
1/2 cup cold coffee
6 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
Cream together the butter and sugar, mix in the molasses and coffee. Mix together all dry ingredients and then add to the first molasses mixture, blending well. Refrigerate the dough a couple of hours so it’s easy to handle. I lightly flour my work surface and roll the dough out to a thickness of about 1/8 – 1/4 inch. Dip your cookie cutters in flour and proceed cutting out holiday cookies. Bake them on an ungreased cookie sheet at 350 degrees for about 12 – 15 minutes. Ice with your favorite icing if desired. The recipe should yield close to 4 dozen. When I was making these for Phillip I would often cut the recipe in half and we still had ample.
