Classic Gingerbread Cookies
24 to 28 cookies
Smiling Gingerbread Cookies are a classic holiday cookie. Their irresistable flavor comes from plenty of spices, brown sugar, and molasses.
Equipment
Ingredients
For the Cookies:
- 3 cups (425g) all purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ¼ teaspoon ground cloves
- ¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
- ½ teaspoon ground allspice
- 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
- 1 tablespoon ground ginger
- 1 ½ sticks (¾ c, 170g) unsalted butter softened to room temperature
- ¾ cup brown sugar firmly packed
- ½ cup molasses
- 1 large egg at room temperature
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
For the Icing:
- 3 cups powdered sugar
- 4 tablespoons milk
- ½ teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 1 tablespoon light corn syrup
- gel food coloring red and green
Instructions
- In a large mixing bowl, mix together the flour, baking soda, salt, cloves, nutmeg, allspice, cinnamon and ginger. Mix well using a fork and set aside.
- In a separate mixing bowl, cream together the butter and brown sugar until smooth.
- Add in the molasses, egg, and vanilla and continue to mix until smooth and well blended.
- Add in flour mixture and mix until fully blended using an electric mixer. Be sure to scrape the edges of the bowl with a rubber spatula. Your gingerbread dough should be smooth and velvety to the touch.
- Chill the dough for at least three hours or overnight. Do not skip this step!
- When the dough is properly chilled and ready for use, preheat the oven to 350°F/180°C and prepare a large cookie sheet with parchment paper. Roll dough out to about ¼ of an inch using a clean rolling pin.
- Cut out gingerbread man shapes using a clean cookie cutter. Be sure to make your cuts close to one another to use as much dough as possible. You can re-roll the scraps of dough and repeat the cutting process, but you don't want to do this too many times.
- Carefully transfer the gingerbread men to the cookie sheet and bake for 10 minutes. Allow the cookies to cool on the tray for a minute, then transfer them to a wire rack to cool completely.
- While the cookies are baking, prepare your icing. Add all icing ingredients to a medium mixing bowl and begin to stir using a fork. Stir for several minutes as it will be very hard at first but should soften.
- Remove two very small portions of the icing and set aside. This will be used for the green and red buttons on the gingerbread men.
- When the gingerbread men have finished baking and have cooled completely, it’s time to decorate! Use a piping bag filled with your white icing to create two eyes and a smile. You can outline the gingerbread men and/or draw zig-zap patterns on the arms and legs.
- Use a toothpick to add food coloring to the reserved icing, tinting it red and green. Add each color to a piping bag and add colorful buttons down the front of each man. 2-3 buttons are perfect!
- Allow the icing to dry before storing your gingerbread cookies in an airtight container.
Notes
- Chilling this gingerbread cookie dough is a MUST. The dough needs to be cold when you cut it out and cold when you add the cookies to the oven. This helps the shapes to cut out cleanly and keeps them from spreading.
- The exact amount of cookies you'll make will depend on the size and shape of your cookie cutter, and how close together you cut the shapes.
- You don't want to re-roll this dough more than once or twice, so try to get as many cookies as possible cut from the first roll-out!
- The flavor of these gingerbread cookies is heavily spiced, with cinnamon and ginger leading the way.
Nutrition
Serving: 1cookie | Calories: 223kcal | Carbohydrates: 51g | Protein: 3g | Fat: 1g | Saturated Fat: 0.2g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 0.2g | Monounsaturated Fat: 0.1g | Trans Fat: 0.003g | Cholesterol: 8mg | Sodium: 80mg | Potassium: 156mg | Fiber: 1g | Sugar: 28g | Vitamin A: 18IU | Vitamin C: 0.03mg | Calcium: 33mg | Iron: 2mg