Gingerbread Snowmen

Sigh. Cheer. This is the last Christmas cookie post. I am torn because while it was fun to bake over the holidays it was also difficult to find ways to give these things away so we weren't eating dozens and dozens of cookies! Our neighbors, friends, and co-workers can only eat so many Christmas cookies. We know because we pawned them off on all these unsuspecting people.

Amazingly, in all my years of baking I had yet to make gingerbread cookies. In fact, as you can see from the title of this post, I don't even own a gingerbread man cookie cutter (hopefully that will be remedied sometime soon).

I was just about cookied out but really wanted to make gingerbread boys with my little boy this year. I decided to use a recipe posted by a friend since I was pretty sure that pure gingerbread made with molasses would be a bit strong for my little guy's picky palate. This recipe uses butterscotch pudding instead so it makes a gingerbread cookie that tastes like gingerbread without the overly sticky dough that isn't fun for a 5 year old (or his mom) to work with.

We had a very enjoyable time mixing the dough, rolling it out, cutting the snowmen, and baking. The 5 year old's attention span fell apart the next day when it came to decorating, but he was perfectly willing to enjoy the fruits of our labors while driving around after dark dressed in jammies, sipping hot chocolate, nibbling on gingerbread snowmen while looking at brilliantly glowing Christmas lights. Enjoy!

Gingerbread Men
Source: All Recipes

1 (3.5 oz.) package of cook and serve butterscotch pudding mix
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

In a medium bowl, cream together the dry butterscotch pudding mix, butter, and brown sugar until smooth. Stir in the egg. Combine the flour, baking soda, ginger, and cinnamon; stir into the pudding mixture. Cover, and chill dough until firm, about 1 hour. 

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease baking sheets or use parchment paper. 

On a floured board, roll dough out to about 1/8 inch thickness, and cut into shapes using a cookie cutter. Place cookies 2 inches apart on the prepared baking sheets.

Bake for 10 to 12 minutes or until cookies are golden at the edges. Cool on wire racks.