Recipes from Aunt Ruby -- Ginger Bread Cookies

When I initially got this recipe from Aunt Ruby I had no idea when I'd make it. I have never baked with molasses before and I wasn't going to go out and purchase any.

And then Mom and Dad moved and I got many large containers of molasses.

No excuses left, and it being the holidays, I decided to experiment with these, but only after some consultations and research.

This is not a "normal" recipe, meaning that I had to consult many search engines, peruse my cookbooks, and show this to expert baker Tori. I still haven't found anything like this. No eggs? Hot water? How much flour yields a stiff dough?

Ginger Bread Cookies
(About 45 men)

Mix together in bowl:
1 cup sugar (white)
1 cup shortening (used stick of butter-flavored Crisco)
1 tablespoon soda (baking)
1 tablespoon cinnamon
1 tablespoon ginger
1 cup Gold label molasses
a little salt (I used 1/2 teaspoon)
Pour over above: 2 cups hot water
Add flour to make still dough (7 cups!)
350 degrees 10 (inches? minutes? probably!)

Since the dough was a little hard to handle, I popped it in the fridge for about an hour to stiffen (and then 2 more hours in the freezer to stiffen even more). I did this based on other recipes I had seen. My research was also the reason I hadn't panicked when the cups of flour reached 5 cups, and started to approach 7 cups. (Good thing I have 50 lbs of flour!)

Rolling out the dough and cutting them into shapes was also an adventure. Turns out I don't have the usual holiday cookie cutters. I have circles, hearts, a cow, and oddly, a Hanukkah dreidel was hiding in my freezer. It being the season of Chrismukkah, I went with the dreidels.

There was so much dough. I kept rolling, and cutting, and baking.

This isn't a typical "hard" gingerbread - like is usual for decorating cookies. It's a cross between gingerbread "cake" and cookies. Since it stayed so soft, I didn't even frost it. Various offices consumed the results, with nary an audible complaint, and the mass amounts of dreidels disappeared in two days, so all in all? A success.

Don't ask me why some of these photos formatted one way, and the others, another. I have no idea.