Recipe - 1989 2nd Place Great-Grandmas Gingerbread Cookies

One half cup Vegetable shortening
1 cup Sugar
3 Eggs
One half cup Cold water
2 teaspoon Baking soda
1 cup Sorghum or molasses
Allpurpose flour (56 cups)
1 teaspoon Ground cinnamon
One half teaspoon Ground cloves
1 teaspoon Ginger
One half teaspoon Salt

Preparation time: 30 minutes Chilling time: Overnight Baking time: 10
minutes

1. Cream shortening and sugar in mixing bowl, beat in eggs, one at a time.
Mix water and baking soda in small bowl until dissolved. Add baking soda
mixture and sorghum to butter mixture. Sift 5 One half cups of the flour, the
spices and salt together. Blend into dough. Divide dough into 4 balls. Wrap
in plastic wrap. Flatten and refrigerate overnight.

2. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Roll 1 portion of dough out at a time on
lightly floured surface. Cut into desired shapes. Bake on a greased cookie
sheet until puffed, 10 to 12 minutes. Do not overbake.

3. When cool, decorate with buttercream frosting and/or candies as
desired. Sorghum gives these cookies a special flavor, but molasses can be
used as a substitute.

Ann Smith of Plainfield won second place, and described how her gingerbread
men left Bohemia in 1872 and immigrated to the United States. Smith's
greatgrandmother, "Babicka" Novak, lived in a small CzechAmerican town in
South Dakota where Smith's mother grew up in the 1920s. At Christmas time,
her greatgrandma would give her neighbors Old World gingerbread men,
reindeer and rocking horses.
"One year when Greatgrandma delivered the cookies, she brought along her
teenaged grandson, who was visiting from a small ethnic Czech community in
Nebraska," Smith wrote.
"Introductions made that day over the watchful eyes of the gingerbread
men eventually lead to wedding bells for my parents a decade later.
Greatgrandma Novak probably had planned this all along!" from the Chicago
Tribune second annual Food Guide Holiday Cookie Contest December 14, 1989
Posted to MMRecipes Digest V3 #340

From: Linda Place placel@worldnet.att.net

Date: Thu, 12 Dec 1996 01:07:01 +0000