It's the "Holiday Season" which unequivocally means that the hurrier I go, the more behind I get, which has me asking; is it me or has life has gotten, not just faster, but so fast it feels as though it's going at the speed of light? I wonder if our forebears felt the same way? Obviously they didn't have the kinds of technology (vehicles, computers, internet etc.) that we have, though I wonder if the use of horses for instance, made them feel as if life had sped up exponentially? And is technology the culprit? Or is it just life, the passage of time and all the responsibilities of adulthood? No need to tell you that as adults, not only are we responsible for ourselves, but we become responsible for our children, spouses and for many of us, for our parents as well. Not to mention all that we do for our extended family, friends, neighbors, co-workers, communities, places of worship or any other volunteering we might do -on top of our jobs.
Then when we add in the holidays with all the extra work they bring into the mix, well Holy Crow, time whizzes by so fast it's positively dizzying. Which of course, adds to our already rising stress levels.
For years, when my boys were younger, thinking I'd get a jump on things, I'd start in early December and make double batches of about 15 different kinds of Christmas cookies. But being the mother of four boys and having a husband with a wicked sweet tooth, long before Christmas arrived all those cookies had all magically disappeared, which meant that I was tasked with doing it again, only that time around, it was no more than a week before Christmas -which made my time even shorter. You'd think I'd have learned that lesson after the first couple of years, but no, being chronically optimistic, I kept thinking it would be different every year -pretty sure it's the blonde in me, sigh.
While I adore the wide array of flavors and textures of various and sundry Christmas treats, one of my very favorites are gingerbread cookies. Partly because I love that they are sweet and spicy, as well as hard and crunchy, and partly because I love the fact that the classic gingerbread men and women have been a quintessential symbol of New England Christmas celebrations from as far back as the first settlers. While they're truly terrific, I suspect one reason they were so popular with our ancestors was because like hardtack or shortbread, crunchy gingerbread cookies last a very long time in an airtight tin, and therefore can be enjoyed months after they were made.
Interestingly, I've found that even while I am in the midst of all the holiday crazies and stressing about a million different things, like being in the eye of a hurricane, there is a calm that comes over me when I am working on cookies, and particularly rolled cookies like gingerbread. I think the focus and concentration I have when I am rolling out the stiff dough, this way and that, back and forth, from one side to the other, getting it to the perfect thickness, before positioning and pressing the cookie cutters into the dough, helps me to relax -and what a gift that is during such a hectic season!
In addition to my love of gingerbread cookies, I also adore having edible ornaments on my Christmas tree, because I love their simplicity. For instance, we string yards and yards of popcorn and cranberries every year and use it as a garland, some years we'll use dried oranges with cinnamon sticks, and chocolate ornaments covered in foil are a must whenever I can find them, candy canes are of course non-negotiable and iced gingerbread ornaments make a wonderful and fragrant addition. Because these cookies are very stiff, they hold their shape well, which means that once you’ve cut them out and placed them on a baking sheet, before you pop them in the oven to bake, using a toothpick, you can poke holes in the top of the cookies, thus allowing a way to string yarn or ribbon through them later and hang the cookies as ornaments.
As it happens, I also adore gingerbread houses. I find them beautiful, whimsical, not to mention delicious. This recipe is also great for gingerbread houses and is the one I've used for the past 25 years every time my boys have made gingerbread houses.
If I'm rolling out gingerbread Christmas ornaments, my go-to pin is the JK Adams Lovely-2 Tolling Pin it's 24" x 1-3/4" and it rolls the dough out to 1/8" thick is which is perfect for making Christmas ornaments for tree hangers or for an edible wreath.
If you want to make full sized gingerbread houses, I'd recommend the Lovely-1 Rolling Pin, because the added 1/8" (for a total of 1/4" thickness) will make your walls and roof sturdier making them less likely to crack or fall apart.
If you're interested in making smaller gingerbread houses, then by all means, go with the Lovely-3 Rolling Pin, it also rolls out to 1/4" thick but it's only 18" long so it takes up less space in your kitchen.
If I'm making strictly 'eating' gingerbread cookies (vs. using them as decorations and/or for gingerbread houses), I'll use either my JK Adams PRP-1 Plain Dowel Rolling Pin, my GRP-1 Gourmet Rolling Pin or my FRP-1 French Rolling Pin. In all honesty, I like (and use) them all, because each of them allows me to decide the thickness of the dough I'm rolling. For gingerbread cookies I prefer to roll the dough out until it is almost paper-thin before baking them, because I like them both delicate and crispy.
Ingredients:
1⁄2 cup Butter, softened
1⁄2 cup Sugar
1⁄2 cup Molasses
2 tsp Ginger, ground
1⁄2 tsp Cinnamon, ground
1⁄2 tsp Cloves, ground
1⁄2 tsp Cardamom, ground
*1 dash Cayenne
1 tsp Baking Powder, sifted
3-1⁄2 cups All-purpose Flour
3 Tbs Water
*While not strictly necessary, a touch of cayenne, will kick up the flavor of the ginger without needing to add more ginger
Instructions:
-Preheat the oven to 350 ̊F.
-In a large bowl, combine the butter, sugar, and molasses. Stir in the spices.
-Add the flour, sift in the baking powder and mix until well incorporated.
-Add water and mix as much as you can. Then, using your hands, finish mixing the ingredients until you can pack them with your hand, and they’re not crumbly. If, for whatever reason, you find them a little too dry to pack, add a little more water.
-For cookies, roll out the dough on a well-floured surface using a well-floured rolling pin (your choice of pins, see above) to a thickness you prefer (I like them very thin). If you are using this recipe to make either hanging decorations use a well-floured Lovey-2 Pin and for gingerbread houses, use either a well-floured Lovely-1 or Lovely-3 Rolling Pin. If you're making gingerbread decorations, this would be the time, using a toothpick, to gently poke a hole in the top of the dough, making it big enough to be able to thread some ribbon.
-Bake on an ungreased cookie sheet for 12–15 minutes (depending on the thickness of the cookies). Then take out and cool for 5 minutes before transferring the individual cookies to a cooling rack. Once fully cooled, they are ready to be decorated with royal icing. Then store them in an airtight tin, where they’ll last for months!
PS: If you're going to make a 'normal sized' gingerbread house, you'll likely need a double recipe.
Royal Icing:
Because Royal Icing stiffens up so beautifully, it is the best thing to use when you're piping out designs on your ornaments, and because it hardens relatively quickly, it will act like glue as you are assembling your gingerbread house.
Ingredients:
3 cups Confectioner’s Sugar
2 Egg Whites
2 tsp Lemon Extract
Instructions:
-In a fairly straight-sided bowl, using an electric mixer on high, beat the egg whites until they are frothy and start to stiffen up a little.
-Slowly add the sugar and lemon extract to the egg whites and continue beating until they get stiff and glossy.
-Transfer the icing to a pastry bag (we recommend the Z Deco Icing Pin) and, using a very small tip (size 1 or 2 round). Pipe the icing onto cooled cookies/ornaments and let them sit for approximately 2 hours until the icing has hardened.
Tip: Try a little bit of icing in your bag. If it's too runny, add a little more confectioner's sugar, if it's a little too stiff and is hard to pipe, had water starting with 1 teaspoon at a time until the icing is the desired consistency.
Author Note: Nancy Carey Johnson is a singer/songwriter and the award- winning author of Life is Good: Wit & Wisdom From A Vermont Homesteader and The Vermont Homesteader's Christmas Memories: Wit, Wisdom & Holiday Recipes. She lives in Poultney, Vermont with her three dogs, four cats and a flock of clucking Chickens, she is also the mother of four grown sons. In her spare time, she loves to garden and bake.
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