The way the cookie crumbles

Well my oven is repaired so it's crunch time for Christmas. I figured I'd share my all time favorite gingerbread cookie recipe. It's so friggin' good that if you even remotely enjoy the taste of gingerbread you have to make a batch of these. They are a crunchy melt in your mouth Christmas delight. They are the gingerbread that I grew up with, straight out of the green binder that holds all of my family recipes. I got the green binder from my mom when I got married. My mom got the recipe from her friend Marcia. Marcia got it from a Moravian cookbook. And now I will give it to you.

Moravian Cookies

Ingredients:

• 4 1/2 cups all purpose flour, sifted
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1 cup light brown sugar, firmly packed
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
• 1/2 cup vegetable shortening
• 1 1/2 cups dark molasses (or one 12oz. jar)
• 1/2 teaspoon cider vinegar

Directions:

1. Sift together in a bowl the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, cloves, and ginger. Set aside.
2. In the bowl of an electric stand mixer combine the light brown sugar, butter, and shortening. Mix until fluffy.
3. Gradually add the molasses and vinegar into the stand mixer. Mix thoroughly.
4. With the setting on low slowly add in the reserved flour mixture. Mix until all the flour mixture is well combined.
5. Chill dough until firm. At least 4 hours. Better if overnight. Or you can make it a couple of weeks in advance and freeze it until you are ready to use it. Just pull it from the freezer and let it sit in your refrigerator overnight.
6. When ready to bake preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Roll out the dough on a floured surface to 1/8 of an inch thick. Not more then 1/4 of an inch. Cut out your shapes making sure they are of somewhat similar size.
7. Bake on a silpat lined cookie sheet for 10-13 minutes depending on how thick they were.

Note: This dough is very sticky. You need to refrigerate any dough you are not currently working with. Any leftover dough can be combined, stuck in the freezer for 15-20 minutes and re-rolled.

I love these cookies because they are crisp and melt in your mouth. When I am thinking gingerbread cookies, these are the cookies I'm thinking of.They have a strong gingerbread flavor. Plus I can make the dough whenever I have time and then just wrap it and stick it in the freezer until I'm ready to deal with it. Last year I forgot about some dough and found it mid summer. So we had gingerbread cookies in July. Hey, why not? The recipe will make about 72 cookies depending on the size of the cookie cutter you use. I already made 63 so far this year and I've only used 3/4 of the dough.

So what do you do with all these cookies??? Well why not let your kids go to town decorating them for their teachers :)

Lily put boobs on this one. But look...she also gave it eyes! I was really impressed.

Lily's cookies

Naiya's cookies were a bit more refined.

So go ahead and try a batch. If you like gingerbread you will like these. And if you don't you can send them my way, I won't mind a bit.