Gingerbread Cookies
Time is quickly ticking away to bake cookies for Santa. My favorite Christmassy treats are gingerbread cookies. Between the excellent aroma as they bake in the oven and the opportunities they present for creative cookie cutting & decorating, they are a perfect seasonal goodie!
My go-to gingerbread cookies recipe:
pour 1/4 cup boiling water over 1/2 cup butter, stir to blend
add 1/2 cup brown sugar & 1/2 cup dark molasses to butter & mix well
sift together: 3 cups flour, 1 tsp baking soda, 1 tsp salt, 1 1/2 tsp ginger, 1/2 tsp nutmeg, 1/8 tsp cloves
blend
chill thoroughly
bake 375° for 10 minutes (depending on thickness, if you rolled the dough very thin for crispy cookies the baking time is closer to 5 min)
I separate the dough into four chunks to chill because my cookie cutting stamina cannot handle too large a quantity of dough at a time.

Roll out the dough between sheets of cling wrap for easy cleanup.

As you may notice, the unbaked cookies do not quite match the baked ones… I was distracted by Christmas movies and scorched the first batch.
I was inspired by the (really excellent) Rogue One movie and a Tasty video to make a simple wookie cookie for my Star Wars loving father. I added lazy store-bought icing that came with a variety of attachable tips to embellish a few of the cookies.
Random Christmas chuckles: