Ginger Balls & Chocolate Dipped Cookies

Now I know this photo shows a variety of cookies and as you can see, they're all dipped or coated in white and semi sweet chocolate, and sprinkles... I can explain!
I found this recipe recently for Ginger Balls and although it had no photo to go with it ( which drives me crazy!!), I decided to give it a try. It won some contest for Christmas Cookies for 2008. It has all the spices I love, ginger, cinnamon, cloves and of course, molasses. It also called for dipping the cooled cookie in white chocolate, so I thought, hmm..sounds good.
So I proceeded to make it and, again, having no photo to rely on, it came out as just a gingersnap type cookie =( . Now, I already have what I consider to be a great gingersnap cookie recipe,which includes black pepper for a bit of extra kick so this one, in my humble opinion, isn't really worth making again. Plus it's made with shortening,( which doesn't thrill me.)
But the chocolate dipping part got me going!! I dipped the cookies in the white melted chocolate but remembered I love ginger and molasses flavors with regular dark chocolate so I pulled out some semi sweet chocolate I had and melted and dipped some cookies in that. And, of course, it's Holiday time so everything has to be sprinkled with some festive colors, right!?
Well, after I finished dipping the Ginger Balls I decided to try some biscotti I had, then some shortbread cookies and lastly some bite sized pieces of a blondie!! At this point I stopped myself. You ever do that? Start dipping one treat and decide to try another and another and ...it's hard to stop! And, hey, everything's better coated in chocolate!!
So here's the recipe:
Cream shortening and sugar.

Mix dry ingredients in medium bowl.

Add well beaten egg and molasses to shortening mixture.

Combine dry ingredients and stir together to blend.

Roll into 1" balls and roll in sugar. Place on ungreased baking sheet about 2" apart.

Ginger Balls

3/4 cup shortening

1 cup sugar

1 egg

4 tbsp. molasses

2 cups AP flour

2 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. cinnamon

1/2 tsp. ground cloves

1 tsp. ginger ( heaping)

Preheat oven to 350.

1. Cream shortening and sugar in mixing bowl.

2. Add well beaten egg and molasses.

3. Mix dry in a medium bowl.

4. Add dry to wet mixture.

5. Roll into 1" balls, then coat in sugar.

6. Place on ungrease cookie sheet, 2" apart.

7. Bake 12-15 minutes ( mine took only about 11 minutes).

8. When cooled, dip cookie halfway into melted white chocolate.( or semi sweet chocolate.)