♥ Gingerbread Men..And Why Refrigerators Are Helpful ♥

Oh, gingerbread. Kind of amazing, aren't they? A toy, a decoration, and a sweet/spicy treat, they never seem to fail as the perfect winter cookie. Treated like a snack or the dessert to top off a heavy December dinner, they're winners with everyone...except, well, maybe themselves.

..Let me explain. These cookies, the first batch of gingerbread cookies I've ever made, were supposed to come out perfectly in my mind. They were made last minute for a holiday party with friends: a party that including the activity of decorating gingerbread men. The cookies were supposed to baked within an hour: baked and chilled in a measly half hour, then cut out in 5 minutes, then bake for 15 minutes, and cool for 10.
..Or so how it went in my mind.

Cruel, cruel reality was far from where my mind wanted it to be, giving me a big slap in the face when I realized this cookie baking process would take far longer than an hour. It took 45 minutes alone to make the dough after messing up the entire thing from the beginning...only realizing it right before I added the dry ingredients. Good bye, 3 sticks of beautiful, beautiful butter...

After that came my least favorite part of the process: adding the molasses. Being a baker-in-the-making, I'm used to sticky. I'm used to strong scents and smells. I'm used to waiting dreadfully long periods of time for sticky substances to poor into measuring cups and then waiting even longer for them to pour from the cup to the bowl. But molasses...it's the worst. It creates such magic, such beauty for the taste buds after it's been baked into a pastry, but beforehand... I can't. I just cannot stand the smell of molasses, no matter how pretty it is and how dark and alluring it looks. It's sticky, it's smelly, and it's slow: not something I'm typically in the mood for when I'm baking cookies that need to be at a party within an hour. It becomes even worse though after it's been mixed into cookie dough...creating a sticky mess in my beloved Kitchen Aid mixing bowl. Le sigh.

Now, say this were cake batter: cake batter is full of sugar, making it a sticky mess when it comes in contact with the counter or mixer parts. But that is not the case with cake: it goes from cake to bowl, with a possible spatula in the middle. Cookie dough, on the other hand, comes in contact with almost everything and anything: the bowl, the utensils, the table, your hands, the baking sheet, the cookie cutters...everything. This wouldn't be too big of a deal..if it weren't sticky as sin. When your dough is so sticky that it won't fall from your hand as you dangle a large chunk of it from your hand over the table..something must be wrong.

So of course, in my rushed-state-of-mind, my genius brain decides: oh Reanna, just use some powdered sugar! That always does the trick, it takes away stickiness and adds sweetness! What could possibly go wrong? You're even putting them in the fridge for a whole 15 minutes before you bake them, everything will work out just fine!

Yeah...no, no they won't.
My friends: this is what happens when you mix cold butter and eggs into your cookie dough, when you decide to roll it in powdered sugar (which causes cookies to spread when there's too much of it in a cookie) instead of flour before baking, and when you're in a rush so you only chill the dough for 15 minutes before baking.
I beg of you, all of you: learn from my foolish mistakes. Learn so that you do not one day open your oven, expecting beautifully shaped and browned gingerbread cookies because hey, they looked beautiful before they went in, and find that your hard, frustrating work has turned into a horrendous, puffy, fat mess, almost giving you a hernia and panic attack right in the middle of your kitchen.
Oh, did I mention that in the midst of all this, my kitchen was a disaster zone, I was a complete mess, and my beloved friends decided to pick me up early and come inside to get me in the process?
Yeah... not the best afternoon for CupcakeGirl, huh?

Everything, of course, worked out A-okay in the end. As..."unfortunate" (as a certain boyfriend of mine would say) the cookies turned out in looks, they came out marvelous in flavor; those warm fall spices created an amazing combination with the gosh-awful molasses, turning out a rich, soft yet chewy cookie, that paired great with milk chocolate chips. As my friends arrived, we through the rest of the darned-dough into a baking pan and sprinkled it with Hershey kisses, baking the dough as if it were a cake. We cut it like bars and served it warm, while the other already baked "cookies" were used in an Ugliest Cookie Decorating competition. Oh, did we all have fun with that.. (It really was not difficult to do with these cookies. What.so.ever.)

So, as I leave you with this probably now terrifying-sounding recipe on this cold January evening, don't be discouraged by my dreadful gingerbread man adventure. Alas, caused by my own stupidity, I disgraced this fantastic recipe, not following any of the helpful hints posted on the website and instead going by my own "intuition" (read: smartass-ness.) I've now looked through all the pictures of the successful attempts by other bakers on Allrecipes: all the cookies look picture perfect and neat, their gingerbread men actually resembling a "man". My suggestions for all of you now? Use SOFTENED butter and ROOM-TEMPERATURE eggs, roll your dough out in FLOUR, let it chill for AT LEAST THREE HOURS, and bake on separate, cold baking sheets as you go along. Another helpful hint I've also learned: put your ball of dough on one piece of parchment paper and place another on top. Roll out the dough using this method and save yourself the sanity I lost by trying to roll out sticky dough with a measly rolling pin. Trust me: you won't regret using that extra piece of paper at all.

♥ Gingerbread Men ♥
Adapted from Allrecipes.com: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/big-soft-ginger-cookies/
Ingredients:

• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons ground ginger
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup margarine, softened
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 tablespoon water
• 1/4 cup molasses
• 2 tablespoons white sugar

Directions:

1. Sift together the flour, ginger, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves, and salt. 
2. In a large mixing bowl, cream together the margarine and 1 cup sugar until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Beat in the egg, then stir in the water and molasses. Gradually stir the sifted ingredients into the molasses mixture. 
3. Roll dough out with flour onto a clean surface. Roll until about half an inch or so thick. Using cookie cutters, cut out preferred shapes and place on baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Place the cookies 2 inches apart onto cookie sheet. Refrigerate for at least 3 hours before baking.
4. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Bake for 8 to 10 minutes in the preheated oven. Allow cookies to cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely. Bake the rest of the batch on cooled cookie sheets. Once cooled, frost, decorate, dunk in milk, or eat hot right off the pan: whatever your little heart desires.

Happy baking!

♥