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…..
THE CAVENDER DIARY 
Love this! Thank you so much for sharing!! xx Gabi
Glad that you like them Gabi, give them a try…it’s a fool-proof recipe…these “fools” made them
Love these! I’d planned on using a chai gingerbread recipe from Sunset and making them for our new neighbors along with a gingerbread version of our townhouses (which are modern so that’s easy – big rectangles with icing windows).
Chai Gingerbread sound awesome…maybe we’ll try that next
Those mustaches are a very cool touch.
That’s our favorite part ….
I love these! Are the mustaches pre-made? Where did you get them if so? Thanks for the recipe.
We found the sweet staches at Target of all stores….in the baking isle (we are headed back for more this week)
Very cool, and I do like the moustaches!
Looks great! How many of these large gingerbread people cookies do you yield from one recipe?
Hi Heather, It’s been awhile since he’s made them, but I think we get about 25-30 men/women from one batch.