Actually Delicious Gingerbread House and Cookies!

Each year I make homemade gingerbread houses for my kids and preschoolers. For the life of myself I couldn't find my recipe, so I searched the internet for hours for a good recipe that didn't require any boiling or weird ingredients. After a few other recipe failures, I came upon these 2 recipes from allrecipes.com. They are the bomb!! The house recipe tastes like graham crackers. My kids begged me to make more just so they could eat them. And I had numerous requests from my preschool mommies for the cookie recipe... it's that good!! One thing to note is that I had to add more flour to both recipes. So if your dough is still too creamy and not stiff and rollable then keep adding flour! (I hesitate to say how much more because I live 6500 ft above sea level and so it's going to be different depending on where you live :)

Gingerbread Man Cookies

½ cup butter, softened

½ cup brown sugar

2/3 cup molasses

2 eggs

4 cups flour, divided

½ tsp baking soda

½ tsp salt

½ tsp allspice

½ tsp cloves

½ tsp cinnamon

½ tsp ginger

Preheat oven to 350F. In a large bowl, craem together the butter and brown sugar until smooth. Stir in the molasses and eggs Combine 1 ½ cups of the flour, baking soda, salt, allspice, cloves, cinnamon, and ginger; beat into the molasses mixture. Gradually stir in the remaining flour by hand to form a stiff dough. (I had to add a lot more flour). On a lightly floured surface, roll out dough to 1/8” thickness. Cut out and place 1” apart on cookie sheets. Bake for 8-10 min in the oven.

Gingerbread House Dough

¾ cup butter

7/8 cup packed light brown sugar

1 ½ tsp lemon juice

½ cup molasses

2 eggs

3 cups flour (I had to add 2 ½ more cups)

2 tsp baking powder

1 tbsp ginger

2 tsp allspice

In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Stir in lemon zest, lemon juice, and molasses. Gradually beat in 2 eggs. Sift the flour, baking powder and spices together; stir into creamed mixture. Turn dough onto a lightly floured surface. Roll out and cut out your house shapes. In a preheated 375F oven, bake for 10 min. Transfer to wire racks. Leave overnight to harden.

Hamburger Surprise!! :)

When we were first married and I told Mr. Amazing I was going to make "Hamburger Surprise" he got rather nervous. Usually any recipe with the word "surprise" is just another way to say "disgusting" haha. When I pulled them out of the oven and he tried one, he didn't like it. Then I added the MUST HAVE ingredient of Lawry's Season Salt. Bam! It instantly became one of his favorite meals. Which is a good thing, because I make them often!

Dough:

1 tbsp yeast

3 cup flour

1/3 cup sugar

½ tsp salt

1 egg

¼ c shortening 

1 cup warm water

Inside:

Browned, seasoned hamburger to taste

Cheese slices

Put warm water, egg, sugar, salt and shortening into mixer. Start mixing and add 1 cup of flour. Mix until blended then add the yeast. Finish adding flour until the texture is just right then let it raise.

Take a small amount of dough and pull it until very thin a little bigger than your palm. Put a small scoop of cooked hamburger and a small cheddar cheese slice (like the size you’d put on a saltine cracker). Roll up into a ball. Bake at 350 for 15-20 minutes. When hot put butter on top and sprinkle with seasoning salt.