Cookie Collection Recipe 3

In the words of Annie Lennox...

I don't need a heartbreaker
Fifty-faced trouble maker
Two timing time taker
Dirty little money maker
Muscle bound cheap skate
Low down woman hater
Triple crossing double dater
Yella bellied alligator...

Forget about all the hassle of finding the perfect guy... just bake your own.

GINGERBREAD COOKIES
Makes ~twenty 5” gingerbread men or thirty 3” cookies

This recipe is for thick and chewy gingerbread cookies. This is not the type of gingerbread to build houses with, since it is too soft.

3 cups bleached, all-purpose flour
¾ cup firmly packed brown sugar
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon ground ginger
½ teaspoon ground cloves
½ teaspoon salt
¾ teaspoon baking soda

12 tablespoons (1½ sticks) unsalted butter, cut into pieces and slightly softened
¾ cup unsulphured molasses
2 tablespoons milk

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and lightly grease, or line with parchment paper, two half-sheet pans.

In a large bowl or in the bowl of a stand mixer, combine the flour, sugar, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, salt, and baking soda. Add the butter and mix until the mixture is sandy and resembles very fine meal. With the mixer running, gradually add the molasses and milk and mix until the dough is evenly moistened and forms a soft mass.

Scrape the dough onto a work surface and divide it in half. Working with one portion of dough at a time, roll the dough to a ¼” thick between two large sheets of parchment paper or plastic wrap. Repeat with the second half of the dough. Leave the dough sandwiched between parchment/plastic layers and stack on a half-sheet pan and freeze the dough until firm, 15 to 20 minutes (or refrigerate the dough 2 hours or overnight).

Remove one dough sheet from the freezer and place it on the work surface. Peel off the top parchment sheet and gently lay it back in place, flip the dough over, peel off and discard the second parchment layer. Cut the dough into desired shapes (set aside the scraps) and transfer the cut cookies to the prepared pans with a wide spatula, spacing the cookies ¾” apart.

Repeat with remaining dough until the pans are full and then bake the cookies until set in the centers and the cookies barely retains imprint when touched very gently with fingertip, 8 to 11 minutes, rotating the pans front to back and switching positions top to bottom halfway through the baking time. Do not over-bake or the finished cookies will be dry. Cool the cookies on the pans for 2 minutes, then finish cooling them on a rack.

Gather together the scraps and repeat the rolling, cutting, and baking with the remaining dough until all the dough is used. Decorate the cooled cookies with icing if desired and store the cookies between sheets of wax paper in an airtight container.