When I was a kid growing up in Nephi's home, Mathilde made a gingerbread cookie that I loved. I believe her version was passed on to her in the late 1920s by a friend from Iowa but I found this earlier version that was widely used in southern Illinois before 1850.
Anyway, I liked the cookie so well I chose it as my first cooking experience. And what an experience it was! Mathilde's friend used coffee instead of water to give it a little extra zing. Mathilde didn't drink coffee; she drank postum. So she wrote out the recipe with 1/2 C postum as one of the ingredients.
Nobody thought to tell me that was supposed to be postum that was made up as a drink rather than 1/2 C of straight postum granules.
Sometimes lessons come learned the hard way.
Anyway, I'm sharing the version of gingerbread cookies that calls for hot water, nothing added. These make very fine gingerbread men or stars or angels or whatever other shapes you want to use. We used a simple powdered sugar frosting but I always thought they were just as good plain.
GINGERBREAD COOKIES
Preheat oven to 350 F.
Combine:
1 C. granulated sugar
1 C. molasses (then rinse molasses from cup with the hot water)
3/4 C. oil
1/2 C. hot water
Add and mix:
2 eggs
Sift together then combine with liquid ingredients:
1 tsp soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1 heaping tsp ginger
1/2 tsp salt (optional)
7 C flour
Use more flour if needed to make a soft-but-not-sticky dough. Refrigerate through. Roll out on an oiled surface and cut with cookie cutters.
Bake approximately 10 minutes or until slightly browned on bottom
This will make nearly 350 small thin gingerbread men but I like fat gingerbread cookies so I roll the dough out fairly thick.
I never measure the ingredients for my powdered sugar icing. This is one of those recipies where you get to experiment.
SIMPLE POWDERED SUGAR ICING
1 dollup of margarine or butter - your choice (and a dollup may be around a heaping desert spoon size - I've made this so many times I just scoop some up and toss it in.)
1 good glug of vanilla ( I like a real vanilla flavor to go with this cookie - but, then, I like a strong vanilla flavor in about anything.)
Maybe a tablespoon of milk.
Mix above ingredients together then add powdered sugar until it's the consistency you like to use.
If you're a purist, you can sift the sugar first. I generally don't take the time.
This icing recipe can be used in many ways. I've used it to frost cakes when I was in too much of a hurry to do a lot of decorating. Substitute the vanilla with orange flavoring and it goes really well with sugar cookies. Use lemon juice instead of vanilla and only use enough powdered sugar to make a thin icing and it's perfect for bear claws - a popular recipe using one of Mathilda's bread recipies as a basis. I'll share that recipe another time.
Anyway, I liked the cookie so well I chose it as my first cooking experience. And what an experience it was! Mathilde's friend used coffee instead of water to give it a little extra zing. Mathilde didn't drink coffee; she drank postum. So she wrote out the recipe with 1/2 C postum as one of the ingredients.
Nobody thought to tell me that was supposed to be postum that was made up as a drink rather than 1/2 C of straight postum granules.
Sometimes lessons come learned the hard way.
Anyway, I'm sharing the version of gingerbread cookies that calls for hot water, nothing added. These make very fine gingerbread men or stars or angels or whatever other shapes you want to use. We used a simple powdered sugar frosting but I always thought they were just as good plain.
GINGERBREAD COOKIES
Preheat oven to 350 F.
Combine:
1 C. granulated sugar
1 C. molasses (then rinse molasses from cup with the hot water)
3/4 C. oil
1/2 C. hot water
Add and mix:
2 eggs
Sift together then combine with liquid ingredients:
1 tsp soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1 heaping tsp ginger
1/2 tsp salt (optional)
7 C flour
Use more flour if needed to make a soft-but-not-sticky dough. Refrigerate through. Roll out on an oiled surface and cut with cookie cutters.
Bake approximately 10 minutes or until slightly browned on bottom
This will make nearly 350 small thin gingerbread men but I like fat gingerbread cookies so I roll the dough out fairly thick.
I never measure the ingredients for my powdered sugar icing. This is one of those recipies where you get to experiment.
SIMPLE POWDERED SUGAR ICING
1 dollup of margarine or butter - your choice (and a dollup may be around a heaping desert spoon size - I've made this so many times I just scoop some up and toss it in.)
1 good glug of vanilla ( I like a real vanilla flavor to go with this cookie - but, then, I like a strong vanilla flavor in about anything.)
Maybe a tablespoon of milk.
Mix above ingredients together then add powdered sugar until it's the consistency you like to use.
If you're a purist, you can sift the sugar first. I generally don't take the time.
This icing recipe can be used in many ways. I've used it to frost cakes when I was in too much of a hurry to do a lot of decorating. Substitute the vanilla with orange flavoring and it goes really well with sugar cookies. Use lemon juice instead of vanilla and only use enough powdered sugar to make a thin icing and it's perfect for bear claws - a popular recipe using one of Mathilda's bread recipies as a basis. I'll share that recipe another time.
No comments:
Post a Comment