Like just about any cookie, the gingerbread variety require the perfect balance of chewy and crunchy. And for that reason, it can be hard to find the right recipe – but mark our words, this here is the one. Although all gingerbread recipes start out the same, this recipe really changed the game.

From taste to texture, this recipe is going to win everyone over this holiday season – we even dare you to make the outcasted gingerbread-hater in the family try them and watch their minds change before your eyes.

Ingredients in Gingerbread Cookies

1. Molasses + spices for flavor 2. Flour so the cookies can hold the extra molasses (you won’t regret it) and keep their shape 3. Egg so the gingerbread has structure and richness 4. Brown sugar instead of white sugar

How to Make Gingerbread Cookies

Before you start, make sure you properly anticipating the full process – which will go like this: Chilling the dough: Once you’ve beaten everything together, you’re going to have some very sticky dough on your hands. Chilling it for at least 3 hours is essential – it’s the only way to make sure the dough will be firm enough to form cookies out of which hold their shape. Wrap it up: Later on, when it’s time to roll it out, it’s much easier if it’s already in a disc shape. Therefore I developed this little trip: chill it in a disc shape first! Cut the dough in half, wrap each half into plastic wrap, and flatten it into ready-to-roll discs. Flatter dough will even chill faster (less volume) Roll it out: Once the dough’s chilled, roll out the discs until they’re about 1/4-inch thick. Flour will really help make the dough manageable at this stage, so go crazy with it and flour your hands, rolling pin, work surface, and even the closest person’s nose (that’s obviously mandatory).

Prepare your ingredients

* 10 Tablespoons (145g) unsalted butter, softened to room temperature * 3/4 cup (150g) packed light or dark brown sugar * 2/3 cup (200g) unsulphured molasses * 1 large egg, at room temperature * 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract * 3 and 1/2 cups (437g) all-purpose flour * 1 teaspoon baking soda * 1/2 teaspoon salt * 1 Tablespoon ground ginger * 1 Tablespoon ground cinnamon * 1/2 teaspoon ground allspice * 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves * optional: easy cookie icing or royal icing

Now for the step-by-step

1. Grab your biggest bowl and beat the butter until completely smooth and creamy. Add the brown sugar and molasses and beat until creamy-looking, then scrape everything stuck on the sides down to the bottom, and beat in the egg and vanilla on high speed for 2 full minutes. Don’t fear a little separated butter. Set aside. 2. Next bowl: whisk the flour, baking soda, salt, ginger, cinnamon, allspice, and cloves together until combined. Then, slowly mix into the wet ingredients until combined. Needless to say, an electric beater will make this easier, but either way – YOU CAN DO IT! Remember to anticipate some serious stick. 3. Time to divide, wrap, and flatten – as described above. 
*These discs can be chilled for anywhere from 3 hours to 3 days. 4. Preheat oven to 350°F (177°C). Line 2-3 large baking sheets with parchment paper, or silicone baking mats. Set aside (don’t leave in the oven!) 5. Take your first dough disc out of the fridge, and start rolling it out with a rolling pin on a well-floured surface (re-flour as needed), until 1/4 in thick. Cut into shapes, preferably with a cookie cutter – but hey, any shape will taste the same. Place cookies as you go 1 inch apart on the prepared baking sheets. Re-roll dough scraps until all the dough is shaped. Repeat with remaining disc of dough. 6. If cookies are smaller than 4 inches, bake for about 8 minutes. If cookies are larger than 4 inches, bake for about 11 minutes. 7. Allow cookies to cool for 5 minutes on the cookie sheet. Transfer to cooling rack to cool completely.

These cookies stay fresh covered at room temperature for up to 1 week!

We all wish we could change something about ourselves, with more height being one of the most commonly cited alterations desired. Paradoxically, tall people also want to change their height, but they want to be shorter. It’s very easy to overlook the fact that the world is built for shorter people; tall people have a hard time doing things that most of us take for granted. These photos show just what it’s like to be a tall person in a short person’s world — and the results are hilarious. Come check out some of the funniest photos people captured of tall people doing their best to get by.

Besides being reminded of their height virtually every minute of their waking existence, tall people also have to be reminded of how much they stick out when they are pestered with questions about their physical appearance.

As this guy figured out, he can easily sidestep this persistent and awkward social encounter by printing out a card with all the answers to the questions you might have for him. Humor is always better than losing your temper when dealing with annoyances.

Unless you’re flying business or first class, you probably won’t feel as if there’s enough room on the plane for you. Just don’t complain about planes next to a tall person, because they will likely scold you for being so inconsiderate, and for good reason.

Besides forcing them to sit in an uncomfortable position, airplanes can increase tall people’s risk of getting blood clots, which can form from not moving around at all for long hours at a time.

Both taller men and women are perceived to be more attractive, studies show. That being said, once a tall person finds a partner, they have to cover a big distance before their lips meet.

There are a lot of obstacles to overcome, as the pair lives on separate planes. Maybe this is what makes tall people so attractive to regular-sized people: they go the extra distance to be with the ones they love.

In addition to having to deal with a huge height contrasts between lovers, tall people often have their size highlighted by their shorter friends.

Even though it can be a bit astonishing to see friends of significantly different heights at first glance, once you get used to how they interact, you notice they complement each other. When you look at famous pairs, they may more often than not come in two sharp contrasts that emphasize what they have in common.

One of the biggest, yet oddly unknown, problems of our age is how designers and architects alike neglect the needs of tall people when they draw up blueprints. Hilarious or not, depending on who you ask, public restrooms and changing rooms at clothing stores are usually built with normal-sized people in mind.

As you can see here, tall people often face uncomfortable situations in which they are afforded a line of sight that offers them more than they bargained for.

Finding a seat that can accommodate your long limbs isn’t an easy task for tall people. To solve the problem of size differences between people, seat makers made the innovative adjustable swivel seat.

This should have been the end of the story, yet tall people need to get creative to use them. Instead of adjusting the seat to its highest setting, this medical professional is forced to bring it all the way down with his shins ready to brace his fall should he slip off.

Modern buildings are one thing to try to fit in with, but every time a tall person wants to go to a historical site or building, he or she soon discovers that people were shorter back in the day. A lot shorter.

If you go back in time in a time machine, you’ll be a giant to people in the past. Far from being the romantic scenes in your imagination, one thing is certain about history – it was cramped, even for a normal-sized person.

It’s a good thing the stands aren’t full, because then this guy wouldn’t be able to take up two seats: one to seat his rear end, and the other as a footrest.

His knees would have to be completely bent, contorted in some sort of yoga pose, for him to be able to fit into the seat. As if that’s not bad enough, imagine how many strangers get angry at you for no other reason than they had the misfortune of sitting directly behind you.

Even getting a sip of water from the normal-sized water fountains is a struggle as a tall person. To live as one with excess height is to live in a world of child-sized things. If you’ve ever entered an elementary school, this is what it feels like for a tall person.

The only difference is that once a normal-sized person leaves the elementary school, the normal-sized world awaits them. For a tall person, everywhere from the courthouse to the convenience store looks like it’s for munchkins.

There are many places that huge trucks cannot enter because they are simply too tall. Normal-sized people gaze at the clearance and do a quick calculation in their head to figure out if they can fit.

For tall people, though, these are just another reminder that they live in a world of small people. They don’t need to worry about the clearance when they get into their cars, at least, but vehicles just pose another set of issues for them.

In order to sit comfortably in car seats, tall people may be forced to compromise keeping eye contact with the road. Luckily, the seat can be adjusted, yet it might not be enough to accommodate very tall people. If they want to get a bigger car, one they can see over, they have to pay more money.

Even though statistically tall people earn more than the average wage, the amount of money they need to add to make their lives bearable surely exceeds the margin.

This guy refused to let his money go to waste after he realized the coin-operated binoculars don’t come close to his eyes. What’s funny about this picture is that the binoculars are built to accommodate several different heights, yet completely left out people of this man’s height.

As you can see, you can stand on three different levels and the binoculars’ height is adjustable as well. The taller you are, the more being able to do a split becomes a practical skill to get by in the world.

Wall-mounted air fresheners are usually installed far away from the mouths and noses of people in the room, yet this isn’t the case 100 percent of the time. For those endowed with height, the taste of scented, airborne droplets coming from these contraptions is far too familiar.

For that reason, it’s always a good idea to install these machines where tall people aren’t directly in their line of fire. What ever happened to opening up a window for some fresh air?

Faced with the discomfort associated with constant crouching, this woman decided to save her back some serious pain and got down on her knees to use the ATM. Notice the perfect posture as her head slightly tilts to view the screen — take notes, tall people!

Avoid the back pain you get living as a tall person in a short person’s world by taking a different approach. Instead of crouching, kneel. It’s good advice that will save you money on a chiropractor.

Once you’re over a certain height, the ceiling becomes one of your biggest obstacles. This guy decided that just because he’s tall doesn’t mean he can’t work out on his elliptical machine.

All he needed to do was remove a ceiling tile or two. The downside is he can’t watch tv while working out, but at least he gets to work out. Listening to music is always an option, though the acoustics up there might make for a very wonky sound.

No matter what it is that is installed hanging down from the ceiling, it presents a real and present danger to the foreheads of tall people. It’s embarrassing for a tall person to hit and possibly break the fan or light.

People don’t like it when you break things in their home and, to top it all off, you’re expected to help them fix it because of your height; after all, you’re the only one there that doesn’t need a ladder to touch the ceiling.

When it comes to taking pictures, photographers have to zoom way out if they want to include tall people’s heads in the frame. In this wedding picture, the handsome groom (6’8″) poses with his beautiful wife (6’4″) while their respective groomsmen and bridesmaids take positions on either side.

It doesn’t look like it from the photo, but the groomsmen are tall in their own right, just not when compared to the bride and groom. They’ll have the cutest (and tallest) babies!

One of the most dangerous places to try to hack it as a tall person is the kitchen. It’s dangerous enough for a normal-sized person with all the sharp knives and hot surfaces, so imagine how risky it is when your height impairs you.

The most important knife technique the guy on the left will ever learn is to cut on his knees, while the guy on the left is lucky he has the fan to guard his face from the omelet vapors rising from the pan.

In this picture, someone got fed up with his coworkers always telling him he missed a spot shaving. Crouching to get a glimpse is no solution, as it puts added pressure on your back to accomplish a simple task most people do standing up.

In fact, even crouching down he couldn’t see where he was shaving for the most part — but that’s all changed now.  Tall people need to get creative if they want to fit comfortably in this world of normal-sized people.

This guy was so excited when he installed his pull-up bar, thinking about how good of shape he was going to get into, but he didn’t stop to think that maybe he would be too tall to enjoy it fully.

After he put it the bar, he realized he wasn’t even able to fully dangle, as his elbows were slightly bent holding the bar as his knees rested. Those darn legs. This is yet another example of how unfair life is.

Having had a growth spurt his entire life has given this guy a unique perspective on the world that most people will never get to experience. But it’s not always that great. He has to face a world that is not designed with his height in mind.

As we can see, he is reminded of this daily. Even his showers are uncomfortable, and washing his face and hair is a never-ending struggle as he can only use one hand while his other hand is holding the showerhead.

The taller one is, the more likely it is that one will suffer from back pain. This is because taller people have more of a tendency to slouch, often having to slump down just to see themselves in a mirror.

Back ProblemsAnd it’s not only in the mirror; tall people are reminded of this daily, thanks to cars, beds, airplanes, doorways, movie theaters, subways, roller coasters and many, many more. Unfortunately, when they slouch, the back ligaments are overstretched, which leads to aches and pains. Ouch!

Most people have a list of things they legitimately have to worry about: natural disasters, crime, the economy, etc. But when people reach a certain height, they acquire a set of enemies that ordinary people could never dream of worrying about like doorways, low hanging pipes, ceiling fans, the occasional ceiling.

Most of the time, they remember to duck, but sometimes they don’t. When that happens, it’s not even the physical pain that hurts the most; it’s embarrassing and if other people saw it, they probably laughed.

With people gawking and clothes not fitting, it’s not always a comfortable ride living in a world designed for smaller beings. Tall girls may feel especially insecure about their height, as sticking out this much can have them feeling left out.

When you’re younger, it can make you think, especially self-conscious, at that awkward age when nobody wants unnecessary attention called to themselves, all they want to do is fit in with everybody else. Having a half-foot on their peers can feel cumbersome at times.

As a tall person, they don’t really need to introduce themselves when meeting someone new; they shake hands and wait for that person to say something about their height. Sometimes, the person they’re meeting is apologetic about it and precedes his or her questioning with, “I’m sorry, but I have to ask.”

But that’s only if they’re lucky. Regardless of their introductions, they are going to face a bombardment of questions concerning their childhood, eating habits, family background, and athletic ability.

“Wow! You’re so tall, can I get a picture?” It’s almost like being a celebrity but without any of the benefits. As a tall person, it’s guaranteed you’ll have someone come up to you and mention that you are tall.

When You’re This TallAs a celebrity, people will want to take pictures with you because you’re famous. People will ask to take photos with you because you’re tall. Celebs may have fans and paparazzi, but tall people will have strangers with no boundaries.

Tall people have a lot to deal with, but perhaps one of the most irritating things is the problems with clothing. The last time they went to the store and bought something they could that fit perfectly, was back in school before they hit puberty.

But as they grew and grew taller, their struggles with shopping only began. The phrase “one size fits all” does not apply to them. The Internet may have made things a little easier, but there’s still no guarantee clothes are going to fit.

Being above average height in our world can draw a lot of attention and sometimes, it’s not in the best way. When anyone is this tall, they will continuously be exploited for their height. It’s not that they don’t want to help out.

Tall OrderBut if someone needs to reach a surface that’s too high or get a lightbulb changed (also the bulbs are kept on the top shelf), it’s not exactly a secret who is going to be called upon to change it.

Most tall people really, really can’t dance. The fact is that tall people have lumbering limbs and tower over their peers. Dancers who think they are too tall to dance often say that they can’t move as smoothly, passionately, or as quick as shorter dancers can.

It’s also more difficult for taller people to bend down and get low. Seeing as dancing is based entirely on the interaction of other people with the assumption they will have similar proportions, it just means that physically, it can get awkward.

Whether someone is just over six feet or inching towards seven feet, sleeping while they’re this tall and big, can be a challenging task. Without a doubt, we’ve all wondered whether there are special beds for taller people? It turns out the answer is yes!

But what happens when tall people sleep away from home? Whether they’re staying in a hotel or overnight at the hospital, it can prove to be quite uncomfortable, not to mention their feet get cold during the night…

Because of their height and gangly stature, they often trip over things, bump into others, or even step on someone’s foot. This happens as they simply don’t see someone because he or she is too short and end up tripping over him or her.

General ClumsinessIt might not happen all the time, but it does happen. This is why parents should always watch their children, and shorter people should always be aware of their surroundings – so they don’t get crushed by a giant person.

Everyone assumes that tall people are amazing at sports, and without fail, will ask them, “do you play basketball?” Even if they don’t play the game, it might be worth it to lie and say yes, rather than having to deal with the irrational amount of disappointment when they say no.

Somewhere along the line, someone will recruit them for a team sport, refuse to take no for an answer, and then be frustrated when they don’t live up to expectations.

Another area where tall people sometimes run into difficulty is with the humble hug, as hugs from short friends can be mega awkward. There are only two ways this can go, either they faceplant into their chest, or they attempt to go on tiptoes to your height and end up jabbing their shoulder into your neck.

For those want to know how to hug tall people, just relax, don’t overthink it, and remember, it’s just as awkward for tall people to embrace shorter people too.

They’re terrible at hide and seek. Any kid playing “it” in this game who is worth his or her salt will know that they can’t fit in 80 percent of the more common hiding spaces, and most times, the game will be over in 20 seconds.

Games Aren’t Fun

They’ll slowly lose friends because you’re no fun to play with and develop deep-seated psychological issues later in life, all because of hide and seek. And as they grow up, they find that even the most conventional spaces and areas can’t accommodate them.

They can never be anonymous, even if people don’t know their name, they know who the tall person is. If you put an extremely tall person in the center of urban anonymity, he’ll draw tons of attention.

This will mean that tall people are always trying to blend in, and most of their time is spent trying to shrink. There’s no escaping the fact that they’re still the tallest person in the room, and trying to fit into their surroundings proves more complicated than we realize.

When tall people go to the doctor for a checkup, medical professionals are the first to be wowed by their tall height.

While other people just see how tall they are, doctors see statistically how small of a percentile these people are in. Often, they don’t even have the equipment needed to accommodate tall patients. As you can see here in the picture, this tall gentleman is so tall the nurse must stand on a table to measure his height.

Another place you don’t really think about being difficult for tall people is the shower. Most showerheads just aren’t placed high enough for our tall friends. You can shower crouching, but it’s better to just disconnect the showerhead or use the hose.

For those who are too tall even for that, get an extension. Faced with these obstacles in the home, tall people should take it upon themselves to get good at home improvement because, otherwise, their woes in the short world will enter their own home.

Nothing makes a taller person feel better than going to the zoo and learning about great apes, like gorillas and orangutans.

As the other onlookers ooh and aah when they learn about how big these giant animals are, very tall people like the one pictured, who is over 7 feet tall, are forced to come to terms with the fact that their limbs are longer than an ape’s. Not quite fair, but there’s yet another example proving that the world wasn’t built with tall people in mind.

If a supernatural being were to grant you one day to live out as a tall person, the first downside you would notice is how the tall lack any leg room. This might seem trivial, but you’ll feel this everywhere.

The world is built for short people, and nowhere is this more evident than when you’re tired and want to sit down on the bus. Once you realize how little room tall people are afforded, you’ll want to go back to being shorter right away.

As much as you take it for granted towering over other people, there is always the possibility as a tall person that you will meet an even taller person. After all, all people shorter than you look the same.

As tall as you may be, this picture shows just how easily you can get supplanted as the tallest person in the room. As you find yourself looking up in wonder at how someone could be so tall, you forget yourself and ask them, “How’s the weather up there?”