Gingerbread, part 1: Gingerbread Kiss Cookies

This month I'm hosting What's Baking, and from among my 3 choices, my fellow bloggers choose gingerbread to be our theme! (which is what I hoped they'd choose). Our little gingerbread man had a birthday this month, and his gingerbread party will be in a few weeks, so I'm hoping I'll find some good gingerbready treats to make for the party.

I really wanted to bake gingerbread springerle, recipe from the most recent King Arthur Flour catalogue, but I need to borrow my mom's springerle pin and she's misplaced it. I haven't given up hope, but I've come up with other options for my own post.

The first one is gingerbread kiss cookies- inspired by the classic peanut butter kiss cookie, only gingerbread instead of peanut butter. These were quite good. We all know the method (I admit, I didn't know you were supposed to add the chocolate after baking until 2007, and could never understand why my chocolate kisses always got weird and crumbly), we all know the look. I will say, however, that because we're so used to the peanut butter version, it's sometimes a surprise to take a bite and not have peanut butter flavor. I also really liked how they weren't super sweet. One could roll these in sugar before baking and it still wouldn't be overly sweet. And it's always nice to have something that's not sugar overload at the cookie swap.

Little gingerbread man tried these as his very first cookie, and REALLY liked it. He finally got the "more" sign after trying it, so eager was he to have another bite.

I can't speak to how long they'll last in tupperware, I think after 3 days we'd eaten them all. I need to make more.

Also, the original recipe calls for hugs, not kisses. I had kisses, but I think hugs would be better- I prefer white chocolate with gingerbread over milk chocolate.

Gingerbread Kiss Cookies
recipe from McCormick Spices

3/4 cups butter (1.5 sticks), room temperature
3/4 cups brown sugar
1/3 cup molasses
1 egg
1t vanilla extract
3 cups flour
2t ginger
1t cinnamon
1/4t nutmeg
1t baking soda
1/4t salt
60 (approx) Hershey's Kisses

Cream the butter and brown sugar, beat til light. Beat in molasses, egg and vanilla, and beat til fluffy (2-3 minutes). Whisk together the flour, spices, baking soda and salt, and fold into the butter mixture. Roll 1T balls and place on a cookie sheet (roll in some sugar first, if desired).

Bake at 350F for 10-12 minutes, until the cookies have just barely started to brown. Meanwhile, unwrap the kisses. Remove cookies from oven and immediately press a kiss into the center of each cookie. Cool a few minutes on the cookie sheet, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.