From Marja Cartwright
- 5 Oz Butter or Margarine (4 oz for house) – I’ve done this successfully with palm oil, margarine, and canola oil (use a little less)
- 2 Cups Sugar
- 8 Oz Molasses
- 8 Oz Warm water
- 1 Tbsp Ginger
- 1 Tbsp Cloves
- 1 Tbsp Cinnamon
- 1 Tbsp Baking soda
- 1 ½ Quarts Flour (1 cup more for house)
1. Mix together butter, sugar and molasses.
2. Mix flour, soda and spices.
Mix 1 and 2 with warm water.
Knead dough on the table until it doesn’t stick to your hands anymore.
LET REST UNTIL THE NEXT DAY.
Roll to about 1/8in thick sheet. Cut out figures. Keep the rest of the dough in the fridge while you’re working with a bit at a time. You know when you have leftover bits around the cookies that you’ve cut out? Squish them together and put them back in the fridge before trying to cut cookies out of them again.
Bake in oven at 325F for 8 to 10 minutes. Take out the cookies while they’re still a little puffy.
When cool, decorate with frosting. Traditionally you should eat almost as much frosting as you put on the cookies while you’re doing the decorating. (Shhh! Don’t tell Mom!)
Alice’s notes: Yes, you need to let the dough rest in the fridge. Yes, you should roll it out very thin. Yes, this recipe makes about a billion cookies. Even half this recipe makes a billion. These cookies improve with age – make them early in the season and keep eating them till New Year’s.
This is a Finnish recipe from Marja who had almost as much influence over the first 12 years of my life as my own mother did. I can’t imagine Christmas without these cookies. They are very yummy and I always eat enough to give myself a headache.