An Ode to Disney Gingerbread Part I. ~ The Gingerbread Mickey

It's my favorite time of year again and as usual, I am incorporating into it, another favorite, Disney!!!  Nothing says Christmas better than Gingerbread... and in this Disney girl's humble opinion, no recipe can top Geppetto's Gingerbread Cookies from the classic Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse Cookbook: Favorite Recipes from Mickey and His Friends.  And what could be better than adorable, fresh-baked gingerbread men...NOTHING... well, except maybe adorable, fresh-baked Mickey shaped Gingerbread Cookies! 

 You need a Mickey shaped Cookie Cutter!!! I was lucky enough to come across an actual Mickey Gingerbread Man Cookie Cutter.  These are sold excusively in the Disney parks, but are also available through a few online merchants, including ebay!  This cookie cutter also comes with a pre-made cookie mix, which I did not ever use!

    

If you can't come across this particular cutter, a Mickey Head shape will also work great, and is more readily available.  I have used the Mickey Head cutter many times for all sorts of cookies.  This one perfect and very reasonable... $5.95 at the Disney Store or Amazon.

Mickey Mouse Icon Cookie Cutter (Walt Disney World Exclusive)

And of course, you can always use a traditional gingerbread man cookie cutter, or simply drop spoonfuls of dough on the cookie sheet! They are still delicious plus easy to make!  The little ones will have so much fun helping out and decorating these little guys, not to mention EATING them! Sorry Mickey!

So here is the recipe directly from Mickey Mouse Cookbook :

What you need:

Butter or margarine (for greasing cookie sheets)

1 package (14.5 ounces) gingerbread mix

¼ cup milk

¼ cup salad oil

It’s nice to have 2 cookie sheets so that you can bake the cookies all at once. If you only have 1, though, cut out and bake half the cookies. Remove them from the sheet and let it cool. Then grease it again with butter or margarine. Cut out the rest of the cookies and bake them. 

Before putting the cookies into the oven, try adding some of these tasty decorations to the tops to make faces or clothes or pretty designs: crushed peanuts, candies, raisins, miniature marshmallows, chocolate chips, coconut, sprinkles. How many more can you think of? You can also decorate the cooled baked cookies with frosting-filled cake decorating tubes.

What you do with it:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease 2 cookie sheets with a little butter.

2. Pour the gingerbread mix into a large mixing bowl. Add the milk and oil and mix well with a spoon.

3. Remove the dough from the bowl and shape it into a round. Wrap it in waxed paper or plastic wrap. Chill it in the refrigerator until it’s firm, about 1 hour.

4. Place the dough on a lightly floured surface. Roll it out with a rolling pin until it’s about ¼ inch thick.

5. Cut out cookies (see pages 28-29) and place them on the cookie sheets with a wide spatula. Leave some room between cookies.

6. Bake for 12 minutes. Let the cookies cool on the cookie sheet.