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1/2 c Vegetable shortening
1 c Sugar
3 Eggs
1/2 c Cold water
2 ts Baking soda
1 c Sorghum or molasses
All-purpose flour (5-6 cups)
1 ts Ground cinnamon
1/2 ts Ground cloves
1 ts Ginger
1/2 ts Salt
minutes
1. Cream shortening and sugar in mixing bowl, beat in eggs, one at a
time. Mix water and baking soda in small bowl until dissolved. Add
baking soda mixture and sorghum to butter mixture. Sift 5 1/2 cups of
the flour, the spices and salt together. Blend into dough. Divide
dough into 4 balls. Wrap in plastic wrap. Flatten and refrigerate
overnight.
2. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Roll 1 portion of dough out at a time on
lightly floured surface. Cut into desired shapes. Bake on a greased
cookie sheet until puffed, 10 to 12 minutes. Do not overbake.
3. When cool, decorate with buttercream frosting and/or candies as
desired. Sorghum gives these cookies a special flavor, but molasses
can be used as a substitute.
Ann Smith of Plainfield won second place, and described how her
gingerbread men left Bohemia in 1872 and immigrated to the United
States. Smith's great-grandmother, "Babicka" Novak, lived in a small
Czech-American town in South Dakota where Smith's mother grew up in
the 1920s. At Christmas time, her great-grandma would give her
neighbors Old World gingerbread men, reindeer and rocking horses.
"One year when Great-grandma delivered the cookies, she brought
along her teenaged grandson, who was visiting from a small ethnic
Czech community in Nebraska," Smith wrote.
"Introductions made that day over the watchful eyes of the
gingerbread men eventually lead to wedding bells for my parents a
decade later. Great-grandma Novak probably had planned this all
along!" from the Chicago Tribune second annual Food Guide Holiday
Cookie Contest December 14, 1989
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