Roll the dough, roll the dough, roll the dough flat

Those of you who have been Our Time classes this  semester have heard that little chant over and over.  Did you know that repetition of phrases and predictability of text helps your child become a better reader and story teller?

In addition to repetition, it is a wonderful thing to spice things up from the predictable with new surprises.  We've been enjoying some homemade gingerbread cookies with our "Cookies" story this week.  It was a perfect opportunity to reinforce to the children the sequence of events described in our story by bringing in real cookies.

Some moms were wondering about the recipe as their children were happily consuming the "hands-on" story prop.

Here it is as I made it for class:

Gingerbread Cookies

1/3 cup butter                                   2 tsp. baking soda
1 cup brown sugar                           1 tsp each of salt, cloves & cinnamon
1 1/2 cups molasses                         1 1/2 tsp. ginger
2/3 cup cold water                           1/4 tsp each of allspice & nutmeg                                      
1 tsp. vanilla                                  

Mix all these together then add 6 - 7 cups of flour.   Just enough for the dough to hold together and not be too sticky for rolling out.   For the ones in class this week I used two cups of whole wheat flour  and about 4 1/2 cups of all purpose flour.  You'll need a little flour when rolling out the dough and cutting the shapes out.

For the little bears we had in class, I baked for 5 minutes at 350˚

Of course you can add some decorations if you like, but they're soft and delicious without the extra sugar.

Makes about 9 dozen of those little bears we had in class.  Bigger cookies?  Try 7 minutes bake time.