Gingerbread Cut-Outs

Here's a recipe that Jeff brought home from kindergarten. Until then we never had gingerbread men cookies because no one liked them. However, everyone liked this version. (It must be the lack of molasses!) And so once a year or so we try to make them, just to add some variety to the standard chocolate chip cookies.Gingerbread Man Recipe

1 cup shortening
1 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
3 cups flour
2 small boxes butterscotch pudding mix
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon

Cream shortening and sugar. Add egg and mix well. Stir in flour, dry pudding mix, baking soda and cinnamon. Mix. Roll dough 1/4" thick; cut with cutter. (Does not need to be chilled first.) Decorate with raisins. Bake at 350° for about 10 minutes depending on size.Normally we do roll out the dough and make gingerbread men, except we decorate with chocolate chips and not raisins.However, since it's not Christmas season, today I decided to go the easy route and just do drop cookies. I used the mini muffin pan because we had some leftover pumpkin spice Kisses and I figured this would be a good way to use them.

It was. No one liked the Kisses plain, but the cookie dough surrounding them made them edible, and even delicious.

Note: One year we didn't have any butterscotch pudding in the cupboard, so I looked for a "from scratch" pudding recipe as a substitute. I discovered that my substitute wasn't quite as dark and flavorful, but it worked. Half and half (one box of pudding, one recipe of substitute) seems to work just fine, and is what I used today.

Butterscotch Pudding Mix

1/3 cup brown sugar

2 tablespoons dry milk

2 tablespoons cornstarch

1/2 teaspoon ginger

Combine ingredients. Equals one small package commercial butterscotch pudding mix. (To make pudding stir in 2 cups of milk, bring to a boil, cook until thick, pour into 4 dessert dishes and chill.)