[M]y recollections of gingerbread begin with a very special kindergarten teacher who brought both her morning and afternoon classes TO HER HOME for a day of sledding and making gingerbread.
She had the dough already made and allowed us all — snowy and unruly — into her kitchen (somehow we fit) to a large table, where we each got to roll out and make a giant gingerbread man we decorated with M&Ms. The spicy smell of those men baking haunts me still (smell is the most connective to memory), and it took me until adulthood to realize the generosity and spirit of a woman who passed some years back, that would lay not only our educational foundations, but my inklings toward baking and sharing.
Gingerbread can be made any time of year, but its dark spiciness and ability to be cut and fashioned into any shape connect it to wintertime and the holidays. It was one Christmas a number of years ago that I ran across a one of the darkest, richest, most spicy gingerbread cookie recipes I had seen in an issue of Saveur magazine, and I realized my little rabbit friend at the time — Skippy (so named because he was the color of peanut butter) — would be the perfect inspiration for a cookie. A gingerbread bunny!
Skippy was a tiny rabbit, a Netherland dwarf. He only grew to weigh about 3 1/2 pounds. I had spotted him in a playpen in a pet store, living with other bunnies and rodents, including some ill-tempered hamsters. Skippy was more uniquely marked than any bunny I had seen: gray-blue eyes and that golden brown tortoise swirl of fur was accented with white, much like a horse. A white front paw, white chest and snout and a playful white dot on his forehead made him stand out. I kept returning to the store to look at him. He ran away from me. It was love.
I could go on about him at length, but I might get misty (and I actually am, anyway). Let me just say that he was a beautiful thing as all things are that bring nothing but life and joy and inspire love, love, love. The furred, four-leggeds are as much our family and our love as any.
My Skippy was still alive when I turned him into a gingerbread cookie (that doesn’t sound quite right…used him as a model for a gingerbread cookie). I had the proper bunny cutter and the proper recipe. A white accent here or there (made with frosting, melted almond bark or white chocolate chips). And miniature M&Ms for eyes, harkening back to the simple decorations provided by my kindergarten teacher. Minimally decorated, I made trays of the cookies at the holidays and handed them 
out at work at the various different jobs I had over the years. At one institution, a woman from the accounting department came at me, all weepy after eating one, and remarked, “That’s the best cookie I have ever had.” At another job, my boss was hesitant to eat the gingerbread bunny, saying,”Aren’t you committing rabbitricide or something?” True, it occurred to me that eating something so resembling my friend might cause him harm. But he lived for many years unscathed.
And, now gone for years, I honor him still with the same recipe. It is a soft dough, rich in butter, heavy in brown sugar, molasses and spices (lots of ginger). It must be chilled or it is too soft to roll out. I roll it thicker than the recipe recommends to give the cookie some depth and keep it soft. The cookies are delicate to work with before baking, so a simple cutter shape, such as that of a small rounded rabbit, works perfectly here.
I press a small M&M eye in the dough bunnies before baking. Everyone has decorating preferences…you can make this one your own (with as much or as little embellishment as you desire) as I have. I bake the cookies for a shorter amount of time than the recipe suggests — no more than 10 minutes. Then they cool and I add the very minimal white accents.
The end results are, of course, cute, but here’s the thing — this is a highly edible cookie. You cannot say that about every cutout cookie, be it gingerbread or sugar (some are too hard, too sugary, too bland once diluted with all the flour required to work them into shapes). 
What you will find here is something very tender and rich, deeply flavored with all those spices that can connect us to our memories and the ages.
This tradition is reassuring to me. And reassurance is needed in these darker days. It reminds me of the thing we must never forget.
Love.
Gingerbread Cookies
From Savuer magazine (www.saveur.com)
Makes 2 dozen 5 ” cookies
This dough can be pressed into decorative molds, cut in conventional shapes, or made into gingerbread men and women. Molded cookies should be baked at a lower temperature to keep the pattern sharp.
3â„4 lb. butter, softened

3â„4 cup dark brown sugar

1 egg, lightly beaten

1â„2 cup unsulphured molasses

3 cups all-purpose flour

1 tbsp. ground ginger

1â„2 tsp. ground cloves

1 tsp. ground cinnamon

1â„2 tsp. baking powder

1â„4 tsp. baking soda

1â„4 tsp. salt
Cream butter and sugar together in a large bowl. Stir egg and molasses into mixture. Sift flour, ginger, cloves, cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda, and salt together into another bowl, then beat into creamed mixture one-third at a time until well mixed. Wrap dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate at least 3 hours.
If using molds, lightly oil them; preheat oven to 300°. Gently press dough into molds with your fingers; invert to unmold on a sheet pan. Trim edges with tip of a sharp knife. For cut-out cookies or gingerbread men, preheat oven to 350°. Roll out dough 1â„8″ thick on a floured surface and cut out. Bake till browned, 12–18 minutes.
Blogger’s Note: It does depend on your oven, but AWS strongly recommends a shorter baking time of 10 minutes or less.