Brown Butter and Rosemary Gingerbread Pan Cookies: or, Impatience Is a Virtue

The baking of Christmas cookies, particularly gingerbread men, presents certain hurdles: the magical few minutes when the dough is cool enough to hold its shape, yet warm enough to be yielding to the creative efforts of the young; the infinite interpretations of the word “man”; and, most pressingly, in an hour rich with the promise of hot, fresh, sweet baked goods: patience. In his or her haste, should your gastrokid eat as much raw gingerbread dough as is possible, causing you to worry about raw eggs and their rare perils, and should he/she be so impatient as to cause a fit fierce enough to harsh the buzz of the holiday spirit (or spirits imbibed), do thusly:

take a bit of the gingerbread cookie dough and flatten it into a little patty or several (depending on the number of children present)

melt a couple of tablespoons of butter in a pan over medium high heat until a nutty brown color (here’s a nice example)

press a little rosemary sprig into each patty

fry the patties, several minutes each side, until browned and good and hot and still soft in the middle (hot enough to cook the raw egg in the batter, but not so hot it’s firm)

sprinkle with a bit of sea salt and cane sugar

let cool and feed to children to eat, while their impatience is mediated for a moment by the magic of a salty sweet savory buttery gingerbread treat like no other

—Hugh