Whole Wheat Gingerbread Men

Am I the only one that feels sorry for gingerbread men?  I do love them once in a while, but sure, they aren’t the most exciting cookie ever, or the sweetest and often I think they get overlooked.  But they’re really a lot of fun, and compared to a lot of other cookies, they do actually have some nutritional value, just from the molasses alone.  I’ve been quite a bit more interested in the iron content of foods lately so I had to look it up.  It actually contains a ton of other important nutrients, but did you know blackstrap molasses contains about 3.5mg of iron per tablespoon?  That’s awesome!  And it makes a huge difference when combined with everything else in your regular diet.  I know I’m going to be looking for some more ways to add it to my diet, at least for now.

So yeah, gingie isn’t always the most exciting cookie, but he’s a lot of fun to decorate.  Although I almost immediately resorted to doing little laughing XD faces instead of regular smiles because most of them turned out a little “off”.  And then after getting bored we just filled in the rest with squiggles as you can see in the background.  I just used a very basic “recipe” for the icing using a tbsp or two of milk, a dash of vanilla and enough icing sugar to make a fairly stiff icing.  I even pipped it on with a ziploc bag with the corner cut off, so really, no special technology needed 🙂  It may take a while for the icing to dry though depending on how much icing sugar you add so be sure to test it before stacking your cookies up.

We had a few of these with some homemade(and 100% cooked) eggnog that you can see in the background, which I’ll post two variations of, hopefully later this week – a dairy and non dairy version.

[print_this]

Whole Wheat Gingerbread Men

Very slightly adapted from Heidi of 101 Cookbooks Gingerbread Man Cookies

 

• 4 C whole wheat pastry flour, or flour from soft wheat
• 3/4 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp sea salt
• 4 tsp ginger
• 1 tsp cloves
• 4 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg
• 1/4 tsp white pepper
• 11 tbsp butter(1 tbsp less than 3/4C of butter)
• 2/3 C dark brown sugar
• 3 large eggs
• 2/3 C blackstrap molasses

 

In a medium sized pot, add the butter, molasses, brown sugar and all the spices including the salt.  Put the pot over medium-low heat just until the butter melts and everything can be combined.  Stir well.  Remove from the heat.  The mixture should not be too hot so add the baking soda, eggs and flour right away and mix well with a large spoon.  If your mixture did get hot enough to cook the eggs be sure to cool before adding the eggs and baking soda..  I used freshly ground flour and ended up using about 1/2C more as freshly ground flour is always less packed than anything that’s been sitting for a while.  Use your judgement and add just a little more if needed.  You can always flour your surface extra well before rolling them if your dough is super sticky once it’s cooled.  Divide the dough into two and wrap in plastic wrap before putting in the fridge for 1-2 hours or until cold.

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

Flour your surface and dough well and roll out one piece of dough at a time to just bigger than 1/8″ thick.  Using whatever cookie cutter you like, cut out your cookies(or using a pastry wheel you can cut cute little squares to decorate with icing later).  Gently transfer them to a lined baking sheet.  Place the sheet in the oven and bake for approximately 7-10 minutes.  Remove cookies from the oven and let them cool on the sheet for a couple minutes before transferring them to a wire rack to cool completely before icing.

[/print_this]