🫶Insider News: For the Love of Gingerbread
and a favorite cookie recipe (or a few) 🫶
“Mama, do we have any molasses?” My eight-year-old runs into the kitchen, holding an old tattered copy of Gingerbread Baby.
“Well, probably,” I reply, my hands bubbling with soap from the pile of dishes in the sink. “What do you need it for?”
“I want to make gingerbread people!” Her blue eyes twinkle like the lights on our Christmas tree. “And I want to open the oven when they are baking and watch them run out!”
I love this kid’s imagination, I think to myself, turning from the sink to continue the conversation with her. “It would be on the top shelf of that cabinet,” I dry my hands and point to the cabinet full of baking supplies. Before I can offer to look, she grabs the stepstool we keep beside the kitchen.
“I’ll look!” she practically yells with excitement. I watch her climb on the counter and start pulling things down from the top shelf. I almost tell her to get down; this is probably not the safest thing to do in the kitchen, but then I remember how my Grandma let me help when I was eight.
My earliest memories of Grandma are in the kitchen. I can’t remember a darn thing about what her kitchen looked like, but I remember she spent a good chunk of every day in it. Grandma made nearly everything from scratch. Except pasta. That came from a box. Grandma was never a particularly good cook, but that didn’t keep her from trying.
Despite her mediocre attempts at meals, Grandma knew how to bake—especially cookies. The smell of fresh baked cookies permeated her double-wide trailer twice a week, when she made dozens of cookies and boxed them up for my aunt, who ran a daycare center a few miles down the road. Every cookie day, she would cream butter and sugar together in a giant olive-colored Pyrex bowl, using an old mustard yellow hand mixer. When the mixture was fluffy and almost white as a cloud, she would add vanilla, then an egg—or two—depending on the cookie of the day.
If I was hanging around the kitchen, she’d allow me to help. Sometimes an egg shell would find its way in the mixture and Grandma would say in a light voice, with a smile on her face, “Oh, that’s okay! Let’s just scoop it out with our fingers!”
Some days she would make snickerdoodles and we’d add cream of tartar with the flour, baking soda and salt. Some days she would make chocolate chip cookies. On those days, I’d steal a handful of chocolate chips just before she poured the entire bag into the dough. Grandma would look at me with a grin and pretend she hadn’t seen a thing.
My favorite were the gingersnap days. The smell of molasses, cinnamon, ginger, and cloves transformed the tiny trailer into a cozy bakery. Once the dough was mixed together, she’d push a bowl of sugar my way. She taught me how to roll the dough into small balls, then drop it in the sugar before placing it on a cookie sheet. Every few balls of dough made it onto the sheet, then I’d pop one in my mouth. I thought I was being sneaky, but Grandma always knew. And she never said a word.
As I got older, Grandma let me do it myself, offering assistance only when I asked. She let me run the mixer, measure all the ingredients, and pour them in—even if they weren’t measured exactly right. Grandma didn’t care if they weren’t perfect. She knew the cookie would be great no matter what.
There’s something special about making cookies almost all by yourself. I don’t want to squash my daughter’s joy, so I—like my Grandma did thirty-five years ago—stand behind her on the counter, and offer to take what she doesn’t need so she can keep looking for the molasses. After what feels like forever, but is really only a moment or two, she pulls out a bottle of thick, dark brown liquid and reads the label out loud.
She looks down at me from her place on the counter and holds it out for me to see. “Blackstrap molasses. Will this work?” I nod my head and take it from her, then hand her the bottles we set aside. After she puts them away, she creeps along the counter to the spice cabinet and I cringe, hoping she doesn’t lose her balance and fall on the hard kitchen floor. She opens the door successfully and finds what she needs, before sitting down on the counter and finally hopping off to safely stand on the floor.
She carefully follows the instructions, mixing the flour and spices together in a bowl and setting them off to the side before creaming the butter and sugar together. I stand beside her and watch as she cracks two eggs into the bowl and pours the molasses into a measuring cup. “This is really sticky,” she says, scraping the goo out with a silicone spatula just the right size for her hands. She makes the dough all by herself, not needing me for a single thing.
She finishes her mixing just as my husband walks up the stairs. “It’s time for open gym,” he says; “do you still want to go?” She looks at me as if to ask if she’s done, and I nod my head.
“The dough has to set in the fridge for an hour or two,” I say; “I’ll put it in the fridge and clean-up. You go work on that back handspring!” As they rush out the door, I smile at the mess surrounding me. Today we’re making gingerbread people, but next week, I’ll dig out my Grandma’s gingersnap recipe. And maybe her snickerdoodles too.
My Grandma became somewhat famous for her gingersnap cookies—I still have friends call to ask for the recipe. My best friend requested them for her wedding reception. Several years ago, my aunt made me a kitchen towel embroidered with the recipe. At every family gathering, Gramma’s Gingersnaps are in the middle of the table. But act fast in taking your share, because they’ll be gone before you know it!
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If you’re looking for a good recipe for Gingerbread People, this is the one my daughter used. It’s firm enough to cut into whatever shape you want, and it’s just the right amount of spice.
My Grandma’s Snickerdoodle recipe is pretty similar to this one from Betty Crocker. I made them for my oldest’s dance holiday party several years ago and now it’s a special request each year.
I’ve made a lot of chocolate chip cookies in my life. This one is my very favorite. I’m also a sucker for a good Peanut Butter Ball. And my husband’s personal favorite is the Danish Butter Cookie.
We begin our Christmas menu on Christmas Eve. For breakfast, we’ll have Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls (I use whatever winter squash puree I find in the freezer). For lunch, I ordered a Honey-baked turkey this year, so we’ll have easy-to-make sandwiches. Christmas Eve dinner is always Snack Dinner, where we have popcorn, fruit, cheese, crackers, and various cold meats and smoked fish.
On Christmas Morning, we’ll have Gramma’s Swedish Tea Ring with scrambled eggs. Because Christmas falls on a Sunday this year, we’ll go to church and have sandwiches or other leftovers for lunch.
For happy hour, this Earl Grey French 75 is AMAZING. I brought an extra large batch to our Book Club holiday party last year and it was gone in no time. This Cinnamon Maple Whiskey Sour is also an excellent holiday cocktail (make it a mocktail by substituting a good black tea for the whiskey).
Our Christmas Dinner Plan isn’t set in stone yet, but the girls have requested Cranberry Sauce with whatever else is on the menu. What we have will largely depend on what we get in our farm box the day before, but I’m thinking about this Shredded Brussels Sprout Salad and this Hasselback Butternut Squash. Or I might go completely off tradition and make the new Green Lasagna from Smitten Kitchen Keepers.
For dessert, I think I’ll make this Red Wine Chocolate Cake for the adults and a pan of brownies for the kiddos. No one will complain about chocolate.
When I started thinking about writing a book this time last year, I thought the book would be a series of essays about food. As I’ve written and explored the idea over the last twelve months, I’ve begun to realize the story is less about food and more about our move. Food is merely the backdrop. Here’s another tiny glimpse of some things I’ve been pulling out of the archives and beginning to weave together.
Seven Years Ago
I’m trying to be courageous and dare to have faith! I know God has called us here for some reason – and although I have no idea what that reason is, I’m trying to have faith that it will be revealed to me soon. I’ve been thinking a lot about how our journey is happening right in the midst of Advent. I think about how the shepherds, the wise men, all of us … all expecting the light of God to shine on something grand and glorious – but instead it shines on a lowly manger. Something about that manger should be comforting to me in this time of transition … right?
And while I know in my gut we made the right decision for our little family … these days have been too short, too dark, and too lonely. I find myself praying for peace, for comfort, for connections. For strength to make this adventure a good one and for courage to continue stepping out on this limb in faith that God will provide everything that we need.
From Dare, on the blog
Five Years Ago
What a difference a year or two can make. Just two years ago we celebrated our first Christmas in New England. It was full of wonder - and not around the birth of Jesus. We were full of hesitation. Full of fear. We did a lot of pretending. Pretending that things were okay. Pretending that we liked it here. Pretending that we were in it for the long haul. We did a lot of crying that Advent. A lot of reflecting. A lot of wondering.
This Post was originally published on December 10, 2015. Life looks so different today than it did then. So much better. So much more full of life. And love. And happiness. And yet I know if we hadn't walked the journey that we've walked, we wouldn't we feel as grateful as we feel to now be on the other side.
Tomorrow I'll share with you a reflection on the journey from the other side - but for tonight, I bring you an oldie, but a goodie. Because sometimes you can't see just how far you've come without looking back to see where you started. And because maybe ... just maybe ... you find yourself in a place where you're feeling a little more darkness and despair than happiness and light. Maybe you don't know what's next for you. If that's you, I pray these words bring you a little sense of peace in the midst of your despair.
Reflections on the blog, December 2017
When we got on that plane in Atlanta just over two years ago, I had no idea how much our life would change. I can remember a late night conversation with D that went something a little like this ...
We've struggled for so long - even in this neighborhood that we love so dearly - at finding the kind of community we really want. If we can find community there ... if we can find a church there that really fills us up ... one that really challenges us ... one that helps us go deep. We can make life there work.
I dare say that two years and four moves later, we've finally found it. It wasn't until we find our little neighborhood in Beverly, and our church in Salem, that we became really confident that this move - away from everything and everyone we've ever known - wasn't just one big disaster.
It's not perfect - no church is - but we finally found a place that helps merge our love for tradition and liturgy with our love for creative worship. A place that challenges us to go deep in our faith, and to put that faith into action. A place that instantly connected us with other people, who have very quickly become the exact kind of community we've been searching for. We may have only been there for a couple of months, but we have already become deeply committed. It is so so good to find a place that feels like home.
So you can imagine I was quite excited when an all-church meeting was announced for mid-November. I couldn't wait to hear about what was coming up in the next few months. A thousand questions crossed my mind ...
Will they celebrate Advent? Or will they jump right in to celebrating Christmas?
Will there be mid-week services?
Will there be a candlelight service? What will Christmas Eve look like?
Will there be a Christmas Pageant?
And as the Pastor told us how we would have a very short Christmas Eve service in the middle of the afternoon, and then we would be invited to go out into the community to bring worship to other places, I found tears streaming down my face.
I was heart-broken. I was angry. I was terrified.
From Thoughts on Christmas Eve, on the blog
Two Years Ago
In a year when it seems like so many traditions have to be put on hold, I’ve been trying to find ways to make Christmas extra special and meaningful. So this week, we dug deep and revived a family tradition that’s been lost for several years.
When I was meal planning for Christmas Eve and Christmas, I remembered that my Gramma—and then later my Aunt—always made some kind of bread ring. I always wake up SUPER early on Christmas. I have never been an early riser, but on Christmas, my body has always had an internal alarm clock. Even now, as a 40-year-old Mom, I’m the one that wakes up at 5am and creeps down the stairs to see the magic that has appeared under the Christmas tree overnight. When I was young, we would start opening presents not long after waking, then take a break between opening presents to eat the delicious bread-ring-thingy—but before this week, I didn’t remember anything else about said bread ring.
So I did what I do whenever I want to revive a family tradition that has somehow gotten misplaced - I texted my Mom’s oldest sister, my dear Aunt Jay. She sent me the recipe—for what I now know is called a Swedish Tea Ring—and reminded me that when she was growing up, Gramma would make several batches, wrap them in foil, put them in a wagon, and walk up and down her neighborhood delivering them to her friends. Um, hello, that totally sounds like something I would do.
From Gramma’s Swedish Tea Ring, on the blog
One Year Ago
I can identify with my little grapefruit plant. I, too, prefer hot days and warm nights. When we first moved to Boston from Atlanta, I loathed snow. I would much rather sit in a pool in April than hike in the snow in December.
And yet.
Six years ago, my husband, David, got a job offer in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He had never lived anywhere other than metro-Atlanta and longed to experience life somewhere else. I lived in the midwest during college and law school and had no desire to live anywhere but the South. Georgia was my home. My family was there. I loved my beautiful little bungalow across the street from my favorite park in downtown Atlanta. We were living my dream.
But I wanted to support his dreams too, and the offer was too good an opportunity to pass up. So we packed all our possessions, loaded our two girls—who were three and 18 months old—and moved more than a thousand miles away from everything we knew. We left family, lifelong friends, beloved church communities, and our dream neighborhood. We moved to a place where we knew not a soul.
And we did it in the middle of winter.
From Will the Grapefruit Grow, at Coffee + Crumbs, December 2021
Two weeks ago my sister sent me a text. “Can you bring starter when you come? Or find a way to mail some?”
I taught her how to make sourdough bread three years ago. Two years ago, I bought her baking supplies for Christmas, because I know the beauty of a good bread banneton. For two years, she made beautiful bread, often passing it on to neighbors and friends. But some time in the last year, she left her starter on the counter and it turned into glue.
“I can try,” I text. “But we’re making several stops along the way. I don’t know how to keep it alive on the road.” Driving with sourdough starter seems harder than flying with it. “I think I read once that you can dehydrate it. Maybe I’ll try that.”
From Instagram, December 2, 2021
At church today we were invited to wonder about how God expresses joy. Tonight I saw God’s joy in the faces of friends we’ve not spent much time with in more than a year. In tight hugs that said “I’m sorry” and “I miss you” and “Welcome back” all at the same time.
I tasted God’s joy in blue cheese gourgeres and Earl Grey French 75s; in pork ragu and polenta; in a thrown-together salad and in red wine by the fire.
Life is not meant to be lived alone. We are meant to laugh together. To break bread together. To share meals with one another.
From Instagram, December 12, 2021
Loving Father,
Help us remember the birth of Jesus, that we may share in the song of the angels, the gladness of the shepherds, and worship of the wise men.
Close the door of hate and open the door of love all over the world. Let kindness come with every gift and good desires with every greeting. Deliver us from evil by the blessing which Christ brings, and teach us to be merry with clear hearts.
May the Christmas morning make us happy to be thy children, and Christmas evening bring us to our beds with grateful thoughts, forgiving and forgiven, for Jesus' sake.
Amen.
~Written by Robert Louis Stevenson
Until next time,
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Tears streaming down my face. Love this