Ingredients:

1 cup Sugar
5/8 cup butter or shortening; (may use half butter and half shortening
1 Egg, beaten
2 cup Molasses
4 tablsp Candied Orange Peel
cut fine
1 tblsp grated Lemon RInd
6 cups AP Flour
2 teasp Baking Soda
*2 teasp. Bakers Ammonia (optional)
1/2 teasp ground Cloves
1/2 ground Nutmeg
1 teasp Cinnamon
1 tablespoon Vanilla Extract or 1 Vanilla Bean, seeds scraped
1/2 teasp Coriander or Cardamom (optional)
3/4 cup Buttermilk or whole Milk
1 cup Almonds, blanched and split into halves (for decoration)

Egg Wash. (1 beaten Egg with 1 tablsp Water)

You could replace the bakers ammonia with baking powder, but the texture is a bit different.

egg wash. 1 beaten egg with a little milk

Directions;

1 .Cream sugar and butter or shortening

2. Stir in egg and molasses, and orange peel.

3 . Sift together the flour, soda, Bakers Ammonia and spices.

4 . Combine dry ingredients alternately with milk to molasses mixture.

5. Add more flour if neccesary to get a nice stiff dough that holds together and not real sticky.

6. Now let the dough age in a ziplock bag or a plastic container. My grandma (Oma) let it sit in a bowl on a high shelf covered with a towel for 6 weeks. Now let's make some cookies.

7. Pre Heat oven to 325 degrees
Roll out the dough and cut into a rectangle. I often use a ruler.
I like the thickness to be about 1/4 inch like that of a nickel.

8. Using the fluted pastry wheel I cut the dough into rectangles, and lift onto the greased baking sheet.
You can use several different tools to lift the cookies without mangling them. I like this dough scraper.

9. Keep a bit of spacing between the cookies and brush with egg wash.
Decorations;
After I brush with an egg wash I top them with an almond or a sliver of Marachino cherry or sometimes both.

10. Bake the cookies at 325 degrees for 20- 25 minutes until lightly browned.

Let cool.

Store the cookies in a cookie tin or plastic storage container.
. They improve with age. They firm up a bit and are very good to serve with coffee or tea.