Nothing says it's Christmastime more, than the smell of Gingerbread baking in the oven. The scent of cinnamon, cloves, allspice, ginger and nutmeg combined together is so sweet. These are a favorite of my son and daughter, and I have to hide them so they don't eat them all! Simply decorated, because they don't need much, to make them taste so good. Recipe below.
Some of the ingredients that I used for the dough. It has alot of ingredients, but don't be afraid of that, it mixes very quickly, and the cookies are awesome!
This dough is simple to pull together and easy to roll out.
Cutting the gingerbread boys and girls.
Pre-decoration, but looking pretty cute!
Baked and decorated. Boys with bow ties and Girls with snowflake eyes and holding candy canes. I also used cookie stamps on some of them.
Pretty little reindeer, just waiting to be eaten.
Gingerbread Cookies
Ingredients
3 cups of unbleached flour
1 tsp. baking soda
2 Tbsp. ground ginger
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. ground cloves
1/4 tsp. allspice
1/8 tsp. nutmeg
1/4 tsp. salt
1 stick butter, softened at room temperature
1/4 cup Crisco shortening, at room temperature
1/2 cup packed brown sugar, light or dark
2/3 cup of molasses
1 large egg, at room temperature
Directions
In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, spices, and salt, set aside. In a large bowl of an electric mixer, on medium-high speed, cream the butter and the shortening together. Add the sugar and beat until fluffy. Beat in the molasses and the egg. Scrape the sides of the bowl, then gradually stir in the flour mixture to form a stiff ball of dough. Divide the dough in half and flatten to form two discs. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 4 hours or overnight. Remove from refrigerator 30 minutes before rolling.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line baking sheets with parchment paper, set aside. Roll out one disc at a time, on a lightly floured surface to 1/8 inch thickness. Cut out cookies with shapes of your choice and place 1 inch apart on baking sheets. Decorate as you like with jimmies/sprinkles, or leave some cookies plain, and after they are baked frost with icing. Gather scraps and re-roll them to form more cookies. Repeat with remaining dough. (TIP: If cookies have too much flour on top lightly dust them off with a dry pastry brush)
Bake cookies for 10-12 minutes, switching sheets top to bottom rack, and front to back, halfway through baking for evenness of color. Let cool about 5 minutes before removing from baking sheets. Transfer the cookies to a cooling rack. Store in airtight containers. Makes about 36 cookies.
NOTE: These can also be decorated with frosting. Recipe below.
Royal Icing
3 Tbsp. Meringue Powder
4 cups of confectioner's sugar
5 - 6 Tbsp. warm water (for stiffer icing use 5 Tbsp. water)
Beat all ingredients until icing forms peaks, about 7-10 minutes at low speed with a heavy duty mixer, or 10-12 minutes with a hand held mixer. Recipe makes 3 cups. Tint as you like with liquid, gel or powdered food coloring. To frost use a pastry bag and small tips or ziploc bag with an end snipped off. Pipe around the edges first then use a small pallet knife to fill in the frosting.
This is a smooth and hard drying, edible icing, so to keep from drying out place a dampened paper towel over your bowl while you are working with it. This icing is NOT recommended for frosting cakes.
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