Soft and chewy gingerbread cookies, with crisp edges and honey and molasses flavor.
‘Tis the season, guys!! We are a week from Christmas, yay! My baby girls first Christmas, I can not be happier!!
I must admit I’m not a fan of gingerbread cookies. For my taste, there are too many spices inside. Don’t get me wrong, I love ginger, but in every recipe for these cookies, the amount of ginger is huge. I’m the kind of person „less is more“ and that goes with this recipe too.
The original recipe I found on Sally’s blog (Sally’s baking addiction). She is a really good food blogger, although I only tried 5 or 6 recipes from her blog, they were really, really good. And her recipe for gingerbread cookies is pretty good, but I had to tweak it a bit to suit my taste.
I first made gingerbread cookies 2 years ago, and my dad loved them so much (he love spiced food), so just because of him, I make them every Christmas. But although I eat only few cookies, I just love to make them, they are so cute and festive.
I won’t say this is the best gingerbread cookies (there is no “the best” gingerbread cookie for me, cuz I’m not a big fan), but these are the one I bake every year, and yes, I eat a cookie or two dunked into a glass of warm milk.
The dough is pretty simple to make, made of warming winter spices (ginger, cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg, I leave out all-spice), and I like a touch of freshness so I add 1 teaspoon of grated lemon zest (but that’s totally optional). You can bake them to be soft and chewy, or crispy, as you like. The best thing is, when your gingerbread cookies are in the oven, the house will smell amazing!!
Happy baking,
Mihaela!!!
Gingerbread Cookies
Ingredients
- 145 grams butter (2/3 cup) room temperature
- 150 grams brown sugar (3/4 cup)
- 100 grams molasses (1/3 cup)
- 100 grams honey (1/3 cup)
- 1 large egg
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 440 grams all-purpose flour (3 1/2 cups)
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 2 teaspoons ground ginger
- 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
- 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon grated lemon zest optional, but I like it
For the icing:
- 250 grams powdered sugar (1 cup)
- 2-3 tablespoons milk or water
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract or lemon juice if you like citrus note
Instructions
- Combine flour, baking soda, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and salt in a bowl and set aside.
- With a handheld or stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment neat butter until smooth and creamy. Add in brown sugar, molasses, and honey and mix until combined. Add egg, vanilla, and lemon zest(if using) and beat on high speed for around 2 minutes.
- On low speed, slowly mix dry ingredients into the wet ingredients until combined. The dough will be sticky and thick.
- Divide the dough in half, form a disc, and wrap tightly into plastic wrap. Chill in a refrigerator at least for 3 hours, preferably overnight.
- Preheat oven to 180 C (350 F). Line baking sheets with parchment paper.
- Flour the work surface, your hands, and rolling pin and unwrap one piece of dough. The dough is sticky so continually flour the work surface as needed. Roll out the disc into approximately 0.5 cm (1/4 inch) thick. Cut out cookies. Repeat with the remaining disc of dough.
- Line cookies on baking sheets approx. 2.5 cm (1 inch) apart.
- Bake for 8-10 minutes, depending on your oven and the size of a cookie-cutter. If smaller cookie cutter, bake around 8 minutes if it is larger bake around 10 minutes. I like mine a bit softer, so I bake them around 8 minutes until they a slightly set, but still soft in the middle. Rotate the baking sheet halfway through baking.
Icing:
- Whisk all ingredients together in a bowl until smooth. If your icing is too thin, add in a little more powdered sugar. If your icing is too thick, add in a tiny bit of milk or water. If you drizzle a little of the icing with the whisk, the ribbon of icing will hold for a few seconds before melting back into the icing. That is when you know it's the right consistency and is ready to use.
- Use a piping bag, or a ziplock bag (with the corner snipped off), or a plastic squeeze bottle to pipe the icing onto the cookies.
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