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.

What's Baking? March: Baking from your heritage

This month our What's Baking? theme is to bake something from our heritage. Amanda of Our Italian Kitchen was inspired by St. Patrick's Day when she chose our theme.
I love this idea, and I thought quite a bit about what I might bake. I thought about a German apple streudel, or a Norwegian cardamom bread (and then I made some Norwegian rice pudding after browsing a bit). But to me, baking from your heritage means more of baking something you grew up with than baking something traditional in the country your ancestors came from. While my dad grew up with some traditional Norwegian dishes, I didn't. I grew up with traditional New England fare.

So I'm going with my Yankee heritage. My entire mother's mother's side of the family has been in Connecticut since the 1600s, so I think that counts.
I made Joe Frogger cookies. These cookies are very humble, totally not fancy. They get dry and hard, and that's how I like them- they're perfect for dunking in coffee. They're a good cookie when you're starving and can't wait for dinner but don't want anything really rich or sweet. They kind of remind me of Kedem biscuits, in that they're just a nice, plain cookie to munch on. You can buy them at the Publick House in Sturbridge, MA, and their recipe is actually what I used. I grew up eating my mother's molasses cookies, which are almost the same as Joe Froggers, but I don't have her recipe. Legend has it that mom's cookies are from a recipe that's been in our family since the 1600s. She's explained to me that back then, our people were very frugal, so our family's recipes had either fat or eggs, but never both. The frugality makes sense to me, but our people were farmers, so I've never really understood not being able to use butter and eggs. But our people were tobacco farmers (did you know tobacco is a huge industry in the Connecticut River Valley? We grow shade tobacco, which is used as the outer layer on cigars) so while I'm pretty sure they had chickens and fresh eggs, maybe they didn't have such easy access to dairy products. And the Joe Frogger recipe I've used also has no eggs... so maybe mom's right.

Joe Frogger Cookies
from The Book of New New England Cookery, by Judith and Evan Jones, given to me by a friend several years ago

1/2 cup shortening
1 cup sugar
1t salt
1 cup dark molasses
6T water
2T rum
4.5 cups flour (I added 1/2 cup)
1t baking soda
1 and 1/2t ginger
1/2t cloves
1/2t nutmeg
1/4t allspice

Cream the shortening and sugar together, then stir in the salt, molasses, water and rum (it'll look kind of curdled, this is fine.) In a separate bowl, mix/sift the flour, baking soda and spices together, then stir it into the shortening/sugar mixture.

Chill the dough thoroughly (this is important, it's pretty soft). Generously flour a board and roll out the dough to 1/4inch thick, then cut into the traditional large circles. Bake at 375F for 12-15 minutes.

These cookies become pretty dry and hard after a couple days, and then they're perfect for dunking in coffee or tea.