Gingerbread teddy bears

24 servings

Ingredients

Quantity Ingredient
1 cup Butter (or margarine)
⅔ cup Brown sugar
⅔ cup Corn syrup and/or molasses
4 cups Flour
1½ teaspoon Cinnamon
1 teaspoon Ginger
½ teaspoon Ground cloves
¾ teaspoon Baking soda
1 Egg; lightly beaten
1½ teaspoon Vanilla extract

Directions

In a saucepan combine butter, brown sugar and corn syrup. Cook and stir

over medium heat until sugar dissolves. Pour into large mixing bowl; cool

5 minutes. Sift together flour, cinnamon, ginger, cloves and baking soda.

Add egg and vanilla to butter mixture; mix well. Add flour mixture; beat

til well mixed. Divide dough in half, cover and chill 2 hours or overnight. For each bear, shape dough into one 1-inch ball, one ¾-inch

ball, six ½-inch balls and one ¼-inch ball. On ungreased cookie sheet

flatten the 1-inch ball to ½" thickness for body. Attach the ¾-inch

ball for head and flatten to ½" thickness. Attach the ½-inch balls for

arms, legs and ears. Attach the ¼-inch ball for nose. Bake at 350 degrees for 8 to 10 minutes, cool and decorate. I usually make these smaller than described here; about ½ the size. Also, the ears start to

look like MOUSE ears if they're not a little smaller than the arms and

legs. Roll the nose ball to make it more oval in shape and place it on the

LOWER half of the bear's face. These can be decorated with any icing-- I

use tinted Royal icing made from meringue powder to add eyes, nose and bow

tie to each bear. For Easter, make these into bunnies. Use only light corn

syrup, no molasses. Substitute white sugar for the brown sugar. Omit spices and add a bit of almond extract if desired. Make them the same way,

but make two long ears on the top and two cheek-balls instead of the nose-ball. Decorate with pastel icings. Karen Mintzias TCVC49A

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