THE CAVENDER DIARY

How about a great holiday gift idea……

We wanted to take credit for this recipe, but after a few trials of our own, Jamie found a great tutorial video for gingerbread cookie baking at The Joy of Baking .

Here’s Jamie’s synopsis:

Gingerbread Cookie Ingredients:

• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
• 2 teaspoons ground ginger
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1/2 cup granulated white sugar
• 1 large egg
• 2/3 cup unsulphured molasses

Premix the 7 dry ingredients and set aside.

In a mixer, beat together the butter, sugar and egg til creamy.

Then add the molasses. (To prevent the molasses from sticking to the measuring cup, spray the cup first with a non stick vegetable spray.)

Slowly add the flour mixture, a cup at a time, mixer on low, until it’s completely mixed in. Careful not to overmix.

Put the dough in the icebox to chill a while and make it much easier to work with.

Overnight works best.

With the chilled dough, on a well-floured surface, roll it out to about a 1/4 inch thickness.

……and gently press in your cookie cutters.

Make sure all your cookies are about the same thickness so they will cook evenly.

Consistency is key.

Pop into a preheated (350 degrees) oven for about 8-10 minutes.

Then onto a cooling rack.

Now for the fun part……

For the Butter Cream Frosting:

• 2 cups confectioners sugar, sifted
•  1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 tablespoons milk or light cream

Mix everything together,

Fill a pastry bag with the icing and decorate away.

Don’t have a pastry bag? Just use a Zip-loc and cut the corner off.

We sprinkled on a little edible glitter (We were hoping that it would “firm up” the buttercream)……but those candy moustaches are our favorite part.

We let them sit in the cool kitchen for about a day before we wrapped them….to let the icing harden just a little.

We bagged them in individual plastic bags, folded the top down, punched 2 holes about an inch apart and threaded red ribbon through the back…..

…tied bows and added our gift tags.

Told ya, they were easy…..