MMMMM----- Recipe via Meal-Master (tm) v8.06 Title: Gingerbread Cookies Categories: Cookies Yield: 36 Cookies 1 1/4 c Brown sugar 10 ts Butter 1/4 c Milk 2 c Flour 3/4 oz Fresh ginger; peeled and -minced (about 1" ginger -root) Combine sugar, butter, and milk in medium saucepan and cook over low heat, stirring frequently, just until butter is melted. Remove from heat. Add ginger, then stir in flour in two batches. To use immediately: (**) Scoop dough in tablespoon-sized balls. Flatten slightly with fingertips or bottom of a water glass. To roll out: (***) Pat dough into a disc, wrap in plastic, and refrigerate at least 2 hours or overnight. Roll to 1/4" thickness on a floured board and cut out in shapes. Both methods: Bake at 350°F for 12 minutes, until bottoms are golden brown. (Tops will look slightly puffed but won't take on much color.) Remove from baking sheet and cool on a wire rack. Makes ~2-3 dozen cookies. * I halved the recipe and ended up drowning in gingerbread cookies – over 50 of them! Quartering the recipe makes for a more reasonable yield, but it can easily be scaled back up if you're in need of gingerbread for days. ** The recipe implies that the dough can be used right away. However, I'd added enough flour that it was starting to taste bland and the dough was still fairly soft and sticky. I knew I wouldn't be able to roll it out, so I scooped it into balls and experimented with flattening some of them. The flatter the discs, the better they baked – the scoops left round didn't have the nice bite that the thinner cookies did. *** "Paste" can stand in for our modern "pastry" in these cookbooks, so it didn't seem unlikely that the original could have been rolled and cut out. To manage this, I refrigerated the dough, which made it much easier to handle. In fact, it rolled and baked up beautifully – this is definitely my preferred method for this recipe. Recipe by Marissa Nicosia Recipe FROM: MMMMM