Molasses Christmas Cookies

My husband's absolute favorite Christmas tradition is making his grandma's molasses cut-out cookies. I first discovered this love affair when I spent Christmas in Vermont with him and his family for the first time. As we arrived at the house his mom informed him of the cookie dough waiting for him in the fridge. His eyes lit up like a small boy on Christmas Eve. "What cookie dough?" I asked. The next morning I found out. As he unrolled the dark dough from the wax paper, I said "Oh! Gingerbread, I've never had real gingerbread before!" "Um, no" he replied matter of factly, "this is molasses cookie dough." Clearly this was a superior cookie not to be confused with anything else.

Every year since we make the molasses cookies no matter what. If we are traveling to to see my family for the holidays we have the molasses cookies as a 'pre-Christmas time snack'. Even the year he had to work over Christmas he still had to have the cookies. I went to spend that Christmas with him in northern Alaska and brought two large containers of them. They survived a harrowing drive in a rare Seattle snow storm, multiple plane rides and sub zero temperatures. The night I arrived we had dinner with his lovely Alaskan host family. For dessert we introduced them to the molasses cookie and left a container with them. The next day they were gone.

Ingredients:
1 cup sugar
1/3 cup shortening
1/2 cup water
3 cups flour
1/3 cup molasses
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup cinnamon
1/8 tsp ginger
1/8 tsp nutmeg

For frosting:
powdered sugar
milk
vanilla

Mix all ingredients with mixer until consistency is uniform.

Form dough into ball, wrap in wax paper, put in Ziploc bag and refrigerate overnight.

The next day, remove the dough from the fridge about an hour before making them. Add a bit of water if the dough is dry and roll out to about 1/4 inch. 

Cut out shapes.

Place on baking sheet and bake at 375F for 12 min.

Let cool completely. Make frosting with powdered sugar, vanilla and milk to taste. Add sugar to thicken and milk to thin.

Frost the cookies with a spoon.

Add sprinkles and decorations. Cookies will be crunchy at first, but if you wait until the next day after they are frosted, they will get soft and chewy.