Gingerbread Snowflakes

Winter and the holiday season snuck up on me this year -- I can't believe Christmas is next week.

We've sent the cards, hung the stocking and trimmed the tree. And, of course, we baked the cookies.

Melissa came over last Friday, with recipes and lots of chocolate for some fudgey chocolate cookies. I opted for gingerbread snowflakes from Martha Stewart. The recipe includes lots of spices -- ground ginger, clove, cinnamon plus the molasses. Compared with the minimal sprinkle of cinnamon or vanilla most recipes require, I love dumping in the rich-colored teaspoons of spice here.

The recipe was simple, but the dough was difficult to handle. After hours in the fridge, it was still not chilled enough to roll out. It went into the freezer for a while, but my Martha-recommended method of rolling the dough between two sheets of plastic wrap still left me with gobs of goopy dough.

So I scrapped the plastic-wrap method and covered my counter with flour, rolling and dusting and incorporating more until the dough had a reasonable texture. I know overworking the dough and adding too much flour are detrimental to cookie texture, but sometimes a baker must take risks.

The final results: a chewy and soft cookie, not the crunchy gingersnap I expected, and definitely not the tough, overworked cookie I fear. With some royal icing and sanding sugar, they look perfectly festive for the holidays. :)