Blessed by the Potato

Yield: 36; Oven temp: 350°F

Ingredients:

1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup molasses
1 egg
2 1/4 cup flour
2 tsp ginger
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp cloves

Method:

1. Mix all ingredients together in a large bowl.
2. Cover and chill for 2 hours.
3. Roll out 1/4″ thick on a floured surface and cut into desired shapes.
4. Bake at 350°F for 10-12 minutes.

A few notes on method:

Throwing the cookies in the snow is faster than the fridge. You can shave an hour off the chilling time if it’s cold enough out! Just don’t do it when it’s too cold — you don’t want to freeze them!

Comments:

I’m not sure where exactly my mom got her gingerbread cookie recipe, but she’s had it for a very long time. The cookies are very good as far as gingerbread goes (and that’s pretty bloody far); they’re not only tasty, but soft and chewy too. Unfortunately, they’re not chocolate, and they’re usually associated with Potatomas, so I rarely if ever make them during the year.

One final note: this recipe is not well suited to making gingerbread houses, since the final product is so soft. You can overcome this to some extent by baking them for a little longer, and I’ve done so myself. However, I still don’t have a good icing recipe to hold everything together, so I don’t have any gingerbread houses to brag about. That said, this is the recipe I used to make the infamous Gingerbread Hogwarts Express.