Gingerbread men

Continuing the search for the ultimate gingerbread man... another contender.  This is pretty good!  Of the 14 recipes I looked at, this one had the most spice relative to flour.  It's intended for a 7" snowflake cutter; my large gingerman was just about that size.

I cut the original recipe in half; this gave me 9 large men and 22 small.  I followed some of the comments that recommended less flour, but otherwise stuck pretty close.  Here's what I used:

3 2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for work surface

1/2 cup whole wheat flour 

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter

1/2 cup packed dark-brown sugar

2 teaspoons ground ginger

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

3/4 teaspoon ground cloves

1/2 teaspoon finely ground pepper

3/4 1/2 teaspoon coarse salt

1 large egg

1/2 cup unsulfured molasses

Sift together flour, baking soda, and baking powder into a large bowl. Set aside.  In a large mixing bowl, cream the butter and brown sugar on medium speed until fluffy. Mix in spices and salt, then eggs and molasses. Reduce speed to low. Add flour mixture; mix until just combined. Divide dough in half; wrap each in plastic. Refrigerate until cold, about 1 hour.  (I did overnight.) Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Roll out dough on a lightly floured work surface to 1/4-inch thick and cut into shapes. Space 2 inches apart on greased baking sheets, and refrigerate until firm, about 15 minutes.  Bake cookies until crisp but not dark, 10 minutes for the large men, 8 minutes for the small. Let cool a few minutes on sheets, then move to wire racks. 

I was surprisingly pleased.  The dough was quite spicy, but the resulting cookies not as much so.  At times I thought they needed more spice, other times I thought they were fine.  Sometimes I thought they had too much salt, other times not.  They had noticeable spice, but not as much as ginger snaps.  I'm glad I reduced the flour-- the dough wasn't too difficult to handle and I wouldn't have wanted the flavor diluted any.  

Conclusion:  Very good!  They weren't too hard, and could probably be softer if baked slightly less.  They maybe could use a tad more ginger, but it's not necessary.  I would consider adding a little orange zest, though, and perhaps some anise, just to mix it up a little.  They weren't too sweet for icing, but were plenty sweet plain.

Recipe:  Gingerbread Snowflakes via martha stewart