Gingerbread family

I've never eaten a gingerbread man up until a few days ago. Whenever I tell people that, they never seem to believe me. For Christmas, Little Sis got some beautifully decorated gingerbread cookies from one of her coworkers. They were so pretty and I was so excited to finally try one. I had an idea of one should taste like. I imagined a crunchy cookie, with some spices. Unfortunately, the cookie I tasted didn't taste anything like what I was expecting.

So I decided to make my own gingerbread men, in hopes of finding a recipe closer to the cookie I had imagined. I used a recipe I found on Culinary Covers that looked fairly simple to whip together.

The dough smelled of molasses as I was preparing it. I had a lot of fun cutting out the gingerbread shapes. I've seen people do snowflakes, stars, christmas trees, etc. But I really wanted to do gingerbread men. Then I found some cookie cutters for gingerbread babies and gingerbread woman, and decided to use those as well. I could do a whole family!

When I tasted my first fresh baked cookie, it was exactly how I imagined gingerbread would taste. Crunchy, spicy, with a bit more kick than other spice cookies like molasses cookies or ginger snaps.

After gobbling a couple, I needed to figure out how to decorate my gingerbread family! I scoured the internet for images of gingerbreadmen. I wanted something simple. But also cute. I wanted my gingerbread family to have faces. After much research, I even had Boyfriend draw up some preliminary sketches. Then I finally settled in on some designs.

I'm really happy with how my gingerbread family turned out. I was so excited to eat them after I decorated them. And then something happened. I don't know exactly what. But when I went to choose one to eat, I couldn't do it! They stared up at me with their smiling faces, and I couldn't bear to choose one and bite into it.

After much debating, I finally took one, and turned it face down and started to eat it. But guilt washed over me with every bite and I wasn't able to enjoy the gingerbread cookie at all! I'm not sure why I had this reaction. I have no problem eating other cute things like gummy bears, panda cookies, etc.

Next time I make these, I'll have to make sure not to decorate them all so that I have some I can munch on.

Ingredients:
2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 tsp. baking soda
1 Tbsp. ground ginger
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp. ground cloves
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup (packed) dark brown sugar
1 large egg
1/2 cup original molasses

Directions:
1. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, ginger, cinnamon, cloves and salt. Set aside.
2. In a large bowl, beat butter and sugar until smooth. Beat in egg, then molasses. Stir flour mixture into butter mixture. Divide dough into 2 halves. Wrap; chill 2 hours.
3. Heat oven to 350 degrees F. On a well-floured surface, roll half of dough to 1/8-inch thickness. Cut shapes with assorted-sized gingerbread cookie cutters; transfer to ungreased baking sheets. Reroll scraps together and then cut shapes again. Repeat with the rest of the dough.
4. Bake at 350 F degrees for 13 minutes. Transfer cookies to racks to cool.