My mom traditionally has what she calls two food coloring holidays - Christmas and Easter. She makes gingersnaps cookies that she decorates. The recipe is from ancient falling apart cookbook. The technique is unusual to me. The cookies are thin crisp and spicy. I think she triples the spices or something. And cloves and other spices are involved. She makes the cookies into faces, makes colored icings and paints - she is always somewhat horrified when people eat them - not because they are ’art’. Because of the food coloring.. She also took egg decorating seriously - in a painterly way.

Looking at this I think I remember that she mixed this recipe with another one.

I really like 'cake' gingerbread, and I make gingerbread cookies for the holidays every year. I use a recipe from an old cookbook my mom got in the 50s called 'Cooking For Christmas'. Everything is stirred together in 1 bowl, easy peasy. I often use part honey or maple syrup, since I prefer organic and the only organic molasses I can find is very dark - too dark to use all by itself. I like to use fresh grated ginger too. I think it has a lot more flavor than the powdered kind. The cookies come out pretty crisp, but once they're iced, they get softer. I need to get my cooky doughs made, actually, but I've been holding off because I have a cold and don't want to spread the joy.

Here's the recipe:

Gingerbread Men

from 'Cooking for Christmas', 1950

1/2 c. sugar

1/2 c. shortening (butter)

1 unbeaten egg

3/4 c. molasses (1/2 cup honey, 1/4 cup molasses)

1 tsp. soda

1 tsp. cinnamon

1 tsp. cloves

1 tsp. salt

2 tsp. ginger (1 Tbs. finely grated fresh)

2 tsp. vinegar

3-3 1/2 c. flour

Combine all the ingredients except the flour & stir until thoroughly mixed.

Add enough flour to make a fairly stiff dough.

Divide into 2-3 parts to make rolling out easier.

Wrap in waxed paper & chill in the refrigerator overnight.

Roll out quite thin & cut into shapes.

Bake on parchment @ 375F - 8-10 minutes.

Decorate as desired.

I make a white icing with cream and powdered sugar and a bit of vanilla, and pipe thin lines to decorate, rather than a solid layer over the whole cooky. Or I simply sprinkle with coarse sugar before baking.

I've never built anything out of gingerbread, but I imagine this recipe would work, since the results are very sturdy.

Ann Reardon has some good tutorials for building gingerbread. She uses melted white chocolate instead of royal icing to stick things together, IIRC.

I cheat and order from here https://www.lebkuchen-schmidt.com/de/nuernberger-lebkuchen/

or Ikea made some good stuff and they make a kit to make a house. The children love decorating it and it tastes good too!

I don't bake much anymore--watching carbs and sugar--but for many years I made the gingerbread, often the chocolate variation, from Dolores Casella's great book "A World of Breads."

Never have done gingerbread, but have twin grandbabies and another coming this spring, so I think I'll be the baking Nana! (Other grandma doesn't cook at all!)

I make a version very similar to agmss’ mother’s recipe, but I roll it into balls and dip them into raw sugar then put the balls onto the baking tray unsugared side down They spread out and get cracks on the top and are hard or cakey depending on how long they are baked. Sometimes I add a good handful of chopped candied ginger to the dough.

My Christmas gingerbread is speculaas, which is heavy on the cinnamon with ginger, cloves, nutmeg and aniseed and brandy as well. They are rolled and cut and glazed with an egg wash before baking and are quite crisp.

I use cinnamon, cloves, and fresh ginger for ginger snaps. I also love "cake" gingerbread, but have not made that for decades.

These days I tend to buy gingersnaps at Trader Joe's.

I've never made a gingerbread house, although I would have liked to as a child. However, it reminded me a bit too much of Hansel and Gretel, and that story disturbed me.

I didn't make my gingerbread "people" cookies this year. I did make these Molasses Cookies...a favorite from the Silver Palate. Not exactly gingerbread but very good. These are more chewy. Just bake longer for crispy.

Molasses Cookies
(Makes about 24 large, flat cookies)

12 T. butter
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup molasses
1 egg
1 3/4 cups flour
1/2 tsp. ground cloves
1/2 tsp. ground ginger
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. baking soda

Preheat oven to 350.

Melt butter, add sugar and molasses, and mix thoroughly. Lightly beat egg and add to butter mixture; blend well.

Sift flour with spices, salt and baking soda, and add to first mixture; mix. Batter will be wet. (See *Note below.)

Lay a sheet of nonstick foil or parchment paper on a cookie sheet. Drop tablespoons of cookie batter on foil/parchment, leaving 3 inches between the cookies. These will spread during baking.

Bake until cookies start to darken, 8 to 10 minutes. Remove from oven while still soft. Let cool on foil.

*Note: I chill the dough before baking so it's very easy to handle. I roll the dough into balls for baking.

I've posted this before. For Christmas, I pipe dots of royal icing around the edges.