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…..