Friday, December 18, 2009

The Best Cookies for Children

I screwed up my courage and baked Christmas cookies with my children. Thanks to my friend Chris, I have The Perfect Recipe.

Gingerbread Cookies I
(from Allrecipes.com, Colonial Williamsburg, with some modifications by me)

Stir together in large bowl:
1/2 c. white sugar
2 tsp. ground ginger
1 tsp. ground nutmeg
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp. salt
1 1/2 tsp. baking soda

Melt:
1/2 c. butter
1/2 c. shortening

Add melted fats to dry stuff in bowl, stirring, along with:
1/2 c. evaporated milk
1 cup unsulfured, blackstrap molasses
3/4 tsp. vanilla

Stir in, 1 cup at a time, mixing well after each cup:
2 c. unbleached white flour
2 c. whole wheat pastry flour

Roll dough to 1/4" thickness on lightly-floured surface. Cut into shapes. Place on nonstick or greased cookie sheets. Bake for 10 minutes at 375. Cool on racks. Yields 4-5 dozen.

What makes these cookies The Best for Children:
1. they don't suffer from re-rolling, lots of flour, and handling
2. they're healthy enough that I don't feel guilty letting them eat a lot. um, A LOT.
3. no eggs, if you're worried about salmonella in the raw dough
4. the batter stirs together - no electric mixer to supervise

This year, going by a great post from ModObject at Home, we painted the cookies. The paint didn't show up as well on these dark-brown cookies, but my kids were tickled. And they stuck red-hot candies in the wet paint too. To keep the paint manageable, I let them each pick out about 10 cookies to paint and squirreled the rest away for a time when I'm not weary of Christmas sweets.

























4 comments:

Anonymous said...

luv luv this picture of Ben.

East of the Orange (S)

Anonymous said...

Margaret,
What is the meaning or process of "boughten?"
Also, I take offense to that pic of my grandson. He looks uncomfortable in a shrink top and he looks demonic - Home Alone demonic!
Gma Joanne

Margo said...

Joanne -
I was using "boughten" in an old-fashioned way to refer to something store-bought.

I thought that was a cute pic of Ben! And it shows the enormous mess of cookie-baking with children. He's wearing a little vintage cobbler apron with blue and green sailors on it. Evie was wearing the chef apron you got her.
M

Mary said...

This is a great recipe that I haven't seen before. I like that the dough doesn't suffer from being over handled by the little ones!