Thursday, December 18, 2008

It's a snap . . .


Last night was our annual church Caroling outing. Everyone looked forward to it with baited breath and talked about it all week. Friends made plans to rendezvous and kids brought their chums. Dinner was rushed through so that we could take to the streets as soon as possible. We went to the hospital, nursing home, retirement village; no helpless senior citizen escaped our clutches. We sung with great abandon, and zeal! We sucked. LOL Not sure what happened, but only two people out of the 30 were on key. It is going to be one of those things that every time you look back on it, you get fits of giggles :) I am sure enthusiasm counts right? If so, we rocked! LOL Afterwords we returned to church for hot chocolate and cookies, which is what the itty bitty kids really wanted any way. We stayed so late with good fellowship that it was almost past our bedtime, forget the kids! A good time was had by all.
I found a great new recipe for gingersnaps and made them for our caroling party. They were such a huge hit I wish I had tripled the recipe! They were the first cookie, and only cookie completely eaten up. Wow, that gave me a warm fuzzy feeling all over, might also have been the super sweet hot cocoa too (must be a southern thing). LOL Here is the recipe, and I DO recommend at least doubling this.
Fleece Navidad (from book of same title) Gingersnaps
2 1/2 cups flour
1 Tbs. plus 2 tsp. ground ginger
2 tsp. ground cinnamon
2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
3/4 cup butter, softened
1 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
1 large egg, room temp.
1/4 cup unsulphured molasses
2 Tbs. freshly grated lemon peel
1/4 -1/2 cup sugar
Heat oven to 350. Lightly grease cookie sheet. Mix flour, ginger, cinnamon, baking soda, and salt in a small mixing bowl. Cream butter and brown sugar together in a medium bowl, mixing well for at least 2 minutes until well blended, pale, and fluffy, scraping bowl with rubber spatula. Beat in egg, then molasses and lemon peel until blended. Slowly add half the flour mixture, mixing with wooden spoon just until blended, then add remaining flour mixture, mixing it in well.
Cover bowl with plastic wrap and chill for 15 minutes. Then take out and roll rounded tablespoons of dough into balls. Roll balls in sugar and place 2 - inches apart on prepared cookie sheet. Bake just until puffed and cookies look dry -- anywhere from 10 - 14 minutes, depending on your oven. (Do not over bake or cookies will become hard.) Carefully remove with metal spatula to wire rack to cool.
Makes 32 cookies.
Blessings, Beth Ann

1 comment:

Queen-Size funny bone said...

Hey, on a high note! older people don;t hear that well so they probably didn't notice.