Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Gingerbread dogs

Last night I baked gingerbread dogs. I'm not crazy about gingerbread but I like it once a year at Christmas and this is a really easy recipe. Plus it makes the house smell good.

These are gingerbread Tervuren. They could be Shelties or collies if you're feeling ambitious and want to use white frosting on their paws and tail tips and to give them collars. I'm not that ambitious so they are Tervs.




GINGERBREAD CUT-OUTS
1/2 C. shortening (Crisco)
1/2 C. sugar
1/2 C. molasses
1 egg
2 1/2 C. flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. ground ginger
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp. ground cloves

Beat shortening and sugar. Add molasses and egg. Beat well. Mix dry ingredients and add gradually to shortening, sugar, molasses and egg.

Cover and chill dough for 3 hours or until easy to handle. (I chilled mine overnight and that was actually too long. It was very stiff and brittle until it warmed a little. Most "chill the dough" recipes really mean "chill the dough overnight" but not this one.)

Roll out dough on floured surface and cut out cookies. Bake on ungreased cookie sheet at 375 for 5-6 minutes or until edges are firm.

Ice with powdered sugar icing if desired:
1 C. powdered sugar, sifted
1/4 tsp. vanilla
1 T. milk (more as needed)

3 comments:

  1. Yum. Will any be left by saturday night? Really looking forward to doing something normal outside our house.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Luckily...I LOVE GINGERBREAD!!! I hope you baked both the cut ones and the 'shells'!! Hate to waste perfectly good gingerbread! G

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thanks for sharing the recipe! I made these tonight (except my cookie cutters are bone shaped!) They turned out great. I'll try your icing recipe tomorrow. I usually just mix butter, powdered sugar and milk indiscriminately until it tastes right. It's kind of ridiculous.

    ReplyDelete