Gingerbread Cookies

While I was visiting my mother in Montreal, we made Christmas cookies for the neighbor-hood children. She hands them out in little bags with a tube of icing attached. It's a great combination of craft and treat, even if the little boys squirt the icing directly into their mouths instead of on the cookies.

Mum's baking is a little healthier than most because she only uses organic whole wheat flour. This sometimes has interesting results - a recent lemon poppyseed loaf took twice as long to cook as the recipe suggested. But it tasted great - people asked for the recipe.

She buys whole wheat pastry flour, which is ground from soft wheat and has less gluten than hard wheat. If you're making bread, use hard wheat flour. For all other baking, use soft. And store it in the fridge or freezer to keep it fresh.

Mum had two items that make cookie-cutting easier. One is a blue silicon pad to roll the dough out on so it doesn't stick. The other is a set of wooden slats you place beside the dough and run the rolling pin on so you get the cookie dough to a uniform height. She has three sets of these slats, all 14" long by 7/8" wide, and with heights of 1/8", 1/4" and 1/2". I covet them, and have asked Larry to make me a set.

These gingerbread cookies are a lovely dark color, and while they're baking the whole house smells of Christmas.

Mum's Gingerbread Cookies
3 1/4 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup butter at room temperature
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp freshly ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp ground allspice (for luck)
1/2 cup molasses
1 egg

Whisk together flour, baking soda and salt.

Separately, beat the butter until creamy. Add sugar and beat until fluffy. Beat in spices, then molasses and egg, beating well after each addition. (The more you beat the dough, the fluffier the cookies will be. I like them on the dense side.)

Beat in the flour 1/3 at a time until well blended.

Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate until firm enough to roll out easily (2 hours or overnight).

Roll the dough out between two pieces of wax paper until 1/4" thick. Cut out shapes. Bake on ungreased cookie sheets at 350°F for 10-12 minutes. Transfer to racks. The cookies will harden as they cool.

Makes about 45 cookies depending on the size of your cookie cutters.