It’s been about a year since the last time I’ve decided to post something from the Keepin’ It Simple kitchen. Obviously, this fat man is doing plenty of eating, as my Saturday local restaurant reviews can attest. That and my ever-present waistline.
But this fat man loves him some Christmas. It truly is the best time of the year, from food and family, to music, lights, you name it. It’s my favorite time of year, by far.
I didn’t get to do nearly as much baking as I have in years’ previous; work and other activities have kept yours truly busy. But I can’t let a holiday season roll by without bringing you at least one edition of the Fat Man Cookith.
Today, we’re making soft ginger cookies with a Christmas-coloring theme. These are fairly easy to make and quite delicious. I added a few minor twists from the original recipe, which I’ll point out later, and the ingredient list itself isn’t too extensive.
Ingredient List – Ginger Cookies
2.25 cups of all purpose flour
2 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp baking soda
.75 tsp ground cinnamon
.5 tsp ground cloves
.25 tsp salt
.75 cups butter (original recipe calls for margarine, but umm, no.)
1 cup white sugar
1 egg
1 tbsp water
.25 cup molasses
Sugar “Bath”
2 tbsp white sugar (I substituted two packets of German vanilla sugar, along with a hefty shaking of both red and green sprinkles for the holiday theme. The amount individually isn’t as important as each of the three ingredients in the bath have roughly the same amount for even coating).
Before baking 
After Baking
The Process
Make sure you have a couple cookie trays, line them with parchment paper, and set them aside. Then, preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Take the smaller amount of sugar, or, as I did, vanilla sugar and two types of sprinkles, and mix it together in a smaller bowl for later for the sugar bath.
Next, you’ll want to sift together all of the dry ingredients in a bowl and set that aside. For those who need a refresher, that’s the flour, ginger, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves, and salt.
In another bowl, cream together the sugar and butter. I softened up my 1.5 sticks of butter in the microwave for about 30-40 seconds. If you’re in zero hurry, i prefer to let the butter warm up with room temperature, but seeing as I wait until the last minute for darn near everything, not an option.
After the butter and sugar are creamed, beat in the egg, and then stir in the water and molasses. If this is your first time with molasses, it’s THICK. It will stick to the measuring cup, so be prepared to spatula out the full amount.
After that’s done, time to start mixing in the dry ingredients to the wet, about a 1/3 of the bowl at a time. Make sure it’s good and mixed before adding in additional dry mix.
Once it’s good and mixed, you’ll then roll the cookies into bowls, the size preference is up to you. Once that’s done, roll each ball individually (you should have between 24-36) in the sugar bath. This is more for presentation than taste, but it’s a nice little touch.
Keep the cookies about two inches apart once placed on the cookie sheet (one dozen at a time) and bake for 8-10 minutes. I kept mine in for about 8.5 minutes and let them cool for about 5-10 before transferring to my cookie tins.
Like I said, simple, but easy to make and delicious. I hope you enjoy.
Fröhliche Weihnacht überall!
