A Reasonably Variable Gingerbread Recipe

Deck the halls with boughs of holly! ‘Tis the season to be jolly!
Actually, don’t deck the halls with boughs of holly. Don’t even touch a bough of holly. Don’t go within ten feet of a holly plant. Those things are vicious.
Also, jolly? I can kill all your jolly with one word- finals.
Now that I have completely ruined the mood, I suppose it’s my duty to cheer you all up again. I know you’re studying (except Scott, and he should be), but remember-take a break every so often, and make some nice gingerbread men. They are quite quick, and are very, very easy. The ingredients you need come in three categories: wet, dry, and spicy. The dry ingredients are: flour and baking power. The wet ones are egg, shortening, molasses, brown sugar, water, and vanilla. To spice it up, add ginger, nutmeg, cloves, and cinnamon.
Choose a basis of six cups of flour. If you want to change the amounts, you can multiply as much as you want; but it is difficult to get a fraction of an egg. Mix the six cups of flour with a tablespoon of baking powder. Add in a spoonful or so of the spices: play around with them as much as possible. I don’t recommend going overboard with the ginger; one spoonful should do. With the rest, go nuts.
In a separate bowl, combine the shortening (one cup, melted), molasses (3/4 cup or a bit more), sugar (one cup… who am I kidding? Just don’t make it wayyyy too much sugar. Not more than one and a half cups- trust me, that’s plenty. Molasses is pretty sweet, you know), eggs (one egg per 6 cups of flour), vanilla (one spoonful), and water. Water is for texture, so don’t worry too much; just put in a bit if your dough seems too thick at the end. Mix in the dry ingredients slowly. Here is where you can add THINGS! Chocolate chips, nuts, raisins, carrots, candies (except Rockets, which are disgusting)… all of these things can go inside gingerbread. When the entire thing is a homogenous mass, divide it into chunks, cling-wrap them, and refrigerate the packages. Leave them in the fridge for at least three hours (while you study!).
When you take your next break, heat the oven to 350⁰ Fahrenheit (Quick, convert to Kelvin, Rankine, and Celsius!). Roll out your dough on a floured surface. If you think sprinkling flour on your counter will make a mess, you have no idea what kind of mess rolling out sticky dough on an unfloured surface makes. And don’t do this on the cookie sheet, or it will burn in the oven. Cut the dough into shapes – be artistic.
Bake the cookies for about 10 minutes. Take them out and let them cool. Yes, that is actually it! If you want to make a house, you will have to make the rectangle cookies quite thick, which means they will have to bake a little longer.
This recipe makes a good many cookies, and if you have too many, the Iron Warrior staff would like to appeal to your Christmas spirit. Send some over, we deserve them!