Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Gingerbread Cookie Recipe

The kids and I made gingerbread cookies this week. We make and decorate sugar cookies quite often, but I had never tried gingerbread cookies. We got the idea from a gingerbread house kit we saw at the store. In the past, we have usually bought a kit every year, but I didn't want to do that this year. For one, I didn't feel like spending even $10 when I had all the ingredients at home for a much tastier and healthier alternative than the rock-hard prepackaged stuff. Also, those kits come with WAY too much candy, more than I wanted the kids to have.

This is the recipe I used:

4 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tbsp. ground cinnamon
1 tsp. ground ginger
1/4 tsp. ground cloves
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
2 large eggs
3/4 cup molasses


1. In a medium-sized bowl, sift the flour, cinnamon, ginger, cloves and baking soda. Set aside dry ingredients.
2. In a large bowl, blend the butter and brown sugar. Add the eggs, one at a time, and then the molasses. Slowly add the flour mixture to the molasses mixture, stirring after each addition with the wooden spoon or mixer (the dough should be stiff).
3. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. On a floured counter, roll out the dough to a 1/4-inch thickness. Use cookie cutters to cut out gingerbread men and a spatula to transfer them to a greased cookie sheet, spacing them 1 inch apart. Bake for 9 minutes, or until light brown.

Note: I did not put the dough in the refrigerator for two hours after making it. I simply rolled it out right away, transferred the cut cookies to the baking sheet, and then let each batch sit in the fridge for 10 minutes before baking.



As far as the toppings go, I used my all natural food colors to make different colors of frosting. Some colors, such as a bright red, can not be achieved with natural food colors. I thought the frosting came out in nice shades nonetheless. I also put out my all-natural sprinkles, and was excited about finally getting to use the snowflake ones. There are many more varieties out there, but because of the fact that they are not artificial, cost is a factor and I don't have the full product range.


I then let the kids talk me into letting them put some "unhealthy" candy on for decoration. Ah well, they will live.





Solomon declared this activity to be the funnest time he has ever had in his life. While I doubt that is really true, I was glad to hear he enjoyed it, as did all the other kids.

3 comments:

  1. How sweet!! I should make some with the kids too!! We bought a house kit this year~first time but the gingerbread men look like fun as well!
    you got your tree up already??? good job having got that far with a 6 week old!! Ours is still not up:(

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  2. The cookies look fabulous! I actually despise cooking, but love to bake...maybe I'll be inspired to do some of that this weekend!

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  3. My daughter followed your recipe and made the cookies. She used a really small cookie cutter so instead of the eyes I had invisioned, each gingerbread man had a single tollhouse morsel covering its entire face and one as a button on the upper body.

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