Run, run as fast as you can…

Run, run as fast as you can, you’re going to be eaten little Gingerbread man.

The buzzing metropolis of Gingerbread is always in full gear during the holidays. Busy Gingerbread citizens coming and going are blissfully oblivious to their horrifying fate. Put a little terror and mayhem in your holiday, attack and devour these delicious little unsuspecting Gingerbread folks down to every last Gingerbread man, woman and child.

INGREDIENTS

1/2 cup  butter

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 egg

1/2 cup fancy molasses 

2 ½ cups all purpose flour

2 tsp ground ginger

pinch cinnamon, allspice, salt

½ tsp baking powder

PROCEDURE

In your standup mixer, beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the egg and the molasses.

Sift together flour, baking soda, salt and spices.

Add the dry stuff to the mucky mix in thirds, stirring to incorporate thoroughly. At the third addition, you may have to use your hands to combine the stiff dough. Form the pile into a smooth dough ball and divide into 2 even balls. Wrap the balls and blap em in the fridge for an hour to firm up.

Preheat oven to 350˚F.

Place one ball in the center of a large piece of parchment paper or silpat.  Dust the top with flour and use your rolling pin to roll out from the center until you have a flat whack of dough about 1/3 inch thick. Place the parchment with the dough on a baking sheet and cut out your little gingerbread people. Remove the scraps and ball them up and blap back in the fridge for more cookies later.

Bake that batch while you roll out the next ball. Combine all the scraps to make more gingerbread folks.
Obviously the dough is already dark and gorgeous, so when you bake then the colour change will be subtle. Bake each round for 10-13 minutes until they get goldener-browner, but not burnt and firm to the touch. Remove, slide the parchment onto a cooling rack and let them cool. They will become crispy as they cool.

While the cookies are cooling, create a small metropolis diorama out of shoeboxes and other crafty material on your kitchen table. Set up the gingerbread people around the make-shift city and let them go out about their daily business before you attack and devour them with reckless fury.

Icing…

Cut yourself some slack and go buy a little tub of premade vanilla icing. Add a tablespoon of powdered ginger and a splash of the liquid from your jar of pickled sushi ginger. Stir it all up and load it into a pastry bag and decorate as your talents allow. Just remember, it’s not how your gingerbread person looks, it’s what’s on the inside that counts… and the inside is delicious.

Manwich…

Alternately you can just smoosh two gingerbread men back to back with a good smothering of icing in between to make a gingerbread manwich.