the gingerbread men have come to town....or something like that

After my baking/cooking duds the other day, my good bloggie friend Veronica ask me if I had a gingerbread man recipe that I could share so I got to looking for one. Since I've never actually made gingerbread cookies before, I thought that this would be a fun experiment. Here's what I found...

The Easiest Gingerbread Men
as published in Gooseberry Patch 'Merry Christmas' cookbook

18.5 oz package spice cake mix
1 cup all-purpose flour
2 tsp ground ginger
2 eggs
1/3 cup oil
1/2 cup molasses

Place cake mix, flour and ginger in a large mixing bowl; stir with a fork until blended (although I just used a wire whisk). Mix in remaining ingredients. Beat with an electric mixer on medium speed for 2 minutes. Cover dough and refrigerate for 2 hours. Place dough on a floured surface; roll out to 1/4 inch thickness using a floured rolling pin*. Cut out gingerbread people and place on greased baking sheets. Bake at 375 degrees for 8-10 minutes or until edges start to darken. Let cool on baking sheets for 5 minutes then remove to wire racks to cool completely. Makes 2-3 dozen.

Now for my actual cookie experience...

*I've always found it a major pain to roll out cookie dough when you want to use cookie cutters because of the mess and hassle for the flour involved. So you know that I was super duper excited when I came across this fantastic cookie rolling tip.

Place a sheet of plastic wrap on a flat surface and place cookie dough on top. Take a second sheet of plastic wrap, place on top of dough and begin rolling with rolling pin until desired thickness is achieved. I've found that this really helps with the dough sticking to the rolling pin and helps with a more even thickness throughout the dough.

Unrolled dough with plastic wrap on top


Rolled dough with plastic wrap still on top


Now I know you all know how to used cookie cutters, but I just wanted to take this picture! ha!


What's also handy about the plastic wrap is that it makes it extremely easy to pick up your cookies after they've been cut. Gently lift plastic wrap until cookie is partly lifted off of surface. Place fingers underneath cookie and gently lift cookie away from plastic wrap with other hand.



After all cookies are cut out, place onto the greased cookie sheet making sure there is enough space between each.(I didn't know how much I'd need to space them until after the first batch was baked!)



As you can see, they needed to be REALLY spaced out....



Being the problem solver that I am (in easy cases at least!), I decided to bake only two cookies at a time and also roll the dough out a little thinner. This worked like a charm!

Before and After...



Here are all the finished cookies that looked half way decent and they didn't taste too bad either (pretty good actually...)!





So there you have it, The Easiest Gingerbread Men cookies, with a few little tweeks from yours truly...

Merry Christmas Everybody! Enjoy!