Gingerbread Cookies
Gingerbread Cookies are a special holiday treat in our house. Every year, we bake up a big batch. When the kids were younger, we would save some of them to decorate Christmas Eve when cousins were visiting. We have all sorts of “ginger-people” cutters on hand. In addition to gingerbread men, we love to use angels, snowflakes, and even Star Wars characters! We make big and small gingerbread cookies, as some people just want a nibble, and others want a whole full size cookie.
This Gingerbread Cookie recipe comes from an old Good Housekeeping cookbook. Your house will smell amazing while these are baking! We even had the UPS delivery man comment on the smell coming out of the house when they were baking one year. Needless to say, he walked away with one in hand. The Christmas-y spices are perfect alongside a cup of coffee or tea, or a glass of milk or eggnog. These cookies stay fresh for quite a while, which makes them perfect for gift giving or adding to holiday cookie trays. Ice and decorate them however you wish, or skip the icing altogether. They are delicious with or without the frosting.
The type of molasses you use will change not only the color of the cookie but also the taste. We usually use Grandma’s Molasses, but the past couple of years we have been doing more shopping at Whole Foods, so we have used a darker organic Wholesome Molasses. The Wholesome Molasses leads to a darker, less sweet cookie. Both are delicious, so it’s really a matter of personal preference. You can see the difference in color in the photos in this post.
Gingerbread Cookies
Ingredients
- 2 ¼ cup flour
- ½ cup sugar
- ½ cup shortening
- ½ cup molasses
- 1 egg
- 1½ tsp cinnamon
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp ground ginger
- ½ tsp cloves can use up to 1 tsp
- ½ tsp ground nutmeg
- ½ tsp baking soda
- ½ tsp salt
- decorator icing, m&m's, chocolate chips, etc.
Instructions
- Mix all ingredients in a large bowl. Start with shortening and egg, then add the remaining ingredients until well blended.
- Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least one hour.
- Preheat oven to 350°
- Lightly flour a surface big enough for rolling and cutting the cookies. Flour your rolling pin, and roll a section of the chilled dough 1/8 inch – 1/4 inch thick.
- Cut cookies with your favorite cookie cutters. Continue until all dough is used up. If you use 5 inch gingerbread people cookie cutters, you will get approximately 24 cookies. We like to use a combination of large and small cookie cutters so there is lots of variety on the cookie tray.
- Bake for 8 minutes or until done. If you roll your dough a bit thicker you will need to add a minute or two. If you use small shape cutters and roll it a bit thinner, start checking around 7 minutes.
- Cool completely on racks before decorating.
- Decorate!
As an Amazon Associate, we earn a small commission from qualifying purchases at no additional cost to you. This helps defray our website hosting costs. Any affiliate product links you may see are for items we actually use. Thank you for your support.