Gingerbread Cookies

-a Christmas  memory-

by Tessa Kiros, from Apples for Jam

My mother’s friend Iria gave me this recipe. It smells of Christmas and is typical in Finland, she says. You can make gingerbread men or any shapes you like (and there are many cutters available — trees, bells, hearts, birds, cows, flowers). I think these are lovely to dust with icing sugar, wrap up and put in a beautiful wrapped box for a gift. They are not too spicy — but very Christmassy. If you make holes in the cookies with a skewer when they have just come out of the oven, you can thread them with ribbon or string and hang them on your tree as decorations.

 

Christmas was my best time, probably. It seemed like I hardly ever slept a wink the night before, wondering how and where he would actually come into the house, and if we’d left the milk and biscuits in an obvious enough place. And there was all that anticipation of whether or not our lists would come true.

So we would rise with the sun and mess around making as much softly deliberate noise as possible until our mother got up. She was normally the first up in the house. But we still had to wait for our father, so he could see the gifts that had come in the night, and he had a habit of sleeping in on Sundays and days like these. That was solid torture. It seemed as if he would go on sleeping forever, through any amount of noise.

And then, at last, we would get into the actual gifts room—I will always remember the beautiful boxes everywhere, mountains of things from grandfathers and cousins, flowing almost out of the room like a wild, rushing and very alive river. We might have nibbled on the gingerbread cookies and other goodies, cross-legged on the floor with cups of warm milk and still in our pajamas. We could linger that day, much longer than usual, in our pajamas.

With many thinks to Tessa Kiros whose memory of gingerbread cookies is shared by all of us.  And thanks to Andrews McMeel Publishing for allowing us to reprint this memory of Christmas, warm milk and gingerbread cookies from the very special book, Apples for Jam

click for book review

click for printable version of gingerbread cookies recipe

Gingerbread Cookies Recipe

• 1/4 cup maple syrup
• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• A pinch of ground cloves
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom
• ½ cup heavy whipping cream
• ½ cup superfine sugar 
• 7 tablespoons butter, softened
• 1 egg
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder

Method

Put the maple syrup, ginger, cinnamon, cloves and cardamom in a small saucepan over low heat, stirring to dissolve all the spices. Remove from the heat and allow to cool a bit, then stir in the cream with a wooden spoon. Mix well, making sure that nothing is left stuck on the bottom.

Beat the sugar and butter together for a minute or two, until the sugar dissolves. Add the egg. Mix in the flour and baking powder alternately with the maple syrup cream. Mix well with a wooden spoon until the mixture is thick and smooth. Cover the dough with plastic wrap and leave in the fridge for at least 3 hours or even overnight.

Preheat the oven to 375°F and line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

Take lumps of the dough and roll out on a floured surface with a floured rolling pin to about 1/4 inch thick. Add extra flour as you roll if you find the dough too soft to handle. (You can also make the cookies very thin if you prefer, and they will then need less time in the oven.) Cut out shapes with your cookie cutters. Put about half the shapes on the baking sheets, leaving just a little space between them for spreading. Bake one sheet at a time for 12–15 minutes, or until the biscuits are golden with a deeper gold around the edges.

Lift them onto wire racks to cool and use the same sheets to bake the rest of the biscuits. (If you are making holes to hang them from your Christmas tree, do that now, and then hang them when they harden.) These will keep in a cookie jar or plastic bag for up to 2 weeks.

Makes about 35 cookies, depending on the shapes

Tessa has many recipes in addition to Gingerbread cookies.  Try more of Tessa's recipes from Apples for Jam:

• Cottage pie
• Chicken Sautéed with Cheese and Milk
• Chocolate and Vanilla Cookies

Editor's Note:  Christmas could not be Christmas without Gingerbread Cookies.  Part of the glory of homemade gingerbread cookies is that you can unleash your imagination when decorating the cookies.  We liked Tessa's tree that had animal gingerbread cookies, different shapes of gingerbread cookies hidden among the colored beads.  Gingerbread is a wonderful gift because it can be moist and melting in the mouth or be crispy and crunchy.  If your gingerbread cookies are shaped like gingerbread men, you can ice them with humor and make any face you like.  Gingerbread cookies are for imagination, humor, creativity.  Merry Christmas to all.

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