It's Almost Cookie Time!

My friend, Lanyardlady, is gearing up to spend the day with her daughter making holiday cookies for their friends and family.

I love making cookies for the holidays so I'll be checking her blog on Sundays for any recipes she cares to share. I'm sure she'd love for you to stop by too.

When I read her blog entry yesterday evening I immediately thought of the incredible recipe I found for gingerbread men last year. You can go here to see it or I've added it below along with a couple of slight changes I made to the instructions - just as personal preference.

I made the small gingerbread house and men shown above and I must say they were by far the best gingerbread cookies I've ever eaten. I'll be making them every year from now on.

The two changes to the instructions I would suggest are -  (1) it says to roll the dough out to 1/8 inch but I like my cookies on the soft side so my dough was rolled to about 1/4 inch thick.

(2) instead of rolling the dough out on a floured board or counter top, I use equal parts of flour and sugar that have been mixed together. It keeps that flour-y build up off the bottoms of cookies.

Here's the recipe:

Gingerbread Men

1 (3.5 ounce) package cook and serve butterscotch pudding mix
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1 egg
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

In a medium bowl, cream together the dry butterscotch pudding mix, butter, and brown sugar until smooth. Stir in the egg. Combine the flour, baking soda, ginger, and cinnamon; stir into the pudding mixture. Cover, and chill dough until firm, about 1 hour.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Prepare baking sheets by greasing them with a little shortening or by applying a light coat of non-stick spray. On a floured board, roll dough out to about 1/8 inch thickness, and cut into man shapes using a cookie cutter. Place cookies 2 inches apart on the prepared baking sheets.

Bake for 10 to 12 minutes in the preheated oven, until cookies are golden at the edges. Cool on wire racks.