Gingerbread men cookies or ginger cookies are a special treat especially for Christmas. When I was young, they were always served for the Holidays. It is so nice to sense that blast of ginger in a soft chewy and delicious cookie. Besides that, they look so adorable.
The recipe uses five very basic spices: ground ginger, salt, ground cloves, and cinnamon. You can change the amounts in relation to your taste. Other spices such as all spice or nutmeg can be added too.
If you want the gingerbread men cookies a bit sweeter, more sugar can be added to the butter. Don’t add too much, however, as it will alter the texture and they will be difficult to work with. In addition, Ensure the butter is at room temperature because it will not cream properly. The same concept applies to the molasses.
Make sure you add the flour a quarter of a time and mix. If you do not follow this process, It will hard to mix and end up with clumps of flour in the mixture.
For the dough to roll out properly, make sure it is chilled in the fridge for at least an hour. Actually, it can be left in the fridge for several days or frozen for longer periods of time.
You want the dough rolled out to about a quarter of an inch thick. If you roll it to thin, it will be too hard to cut out. The cutters can be purchase in just about any grocery or department store.
In terms of the decorating the cookies, I just use a simple combination of powdered sugar and milk. Water can be used too. I slip it into a zip lock bag and cut a small hole in the tip. You can use a piping bag, but this seems to work perfectly.
You can use two or three bags and add some food colouring for creative decorating, as well. The decorating patterns is simply a matter of preference.
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- 2 3/4 cups of all purpose flour
- 1 tsp of ground ginger
- 1/2 tsp of cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp of baking soda
- pinch of salt
- 1/2 tsp of ground cloves
- 1 stick of butter (113 grams or 1/2 cup) of unsalted butter
- 1/2 cup of white granulated sugar
- 1 egg
- 1/2 cup of molasses
- 1 cup of confectioner’s sugar
- 3 tbsp of milk
- Add the flour, ginger, cinnamon, baking soda, salt, and clove to a mixing bowl. Using a whisk, mix until well combined and set it aside.
- Add the butter and sugar to a separate bow and beat until creamy.
- Put the egg and molasses in and beat once again until smooth.
- Place 1/4 of the flour mixture in and mix until well incorporated. Repeat the process, in quarters, for the remainder of the mixture.
- Form the dough into a disk shape, place it on some cling wrap, seal it, and put it in the fridge for an hour.
- Flour a surface, place the dough on, and dust some flour over the top. Roll it out until it is about 1/4 inch thick.
- Take a gingerbread man cookie cutter and cut out the men. You can ball up and cut out the dough again until it is all used.
- Place in a 350 degree F 177 C preheated oven for about 17 minutes.
- Remove the cookies and put them on a wire rack to cool completely.
- While the cookies are cooling, make the icing by combing the confectioner’s sugar and milk. Mix until well combined.
- Put the icing into a piping bag with a small tip or a zip lock bag with a small hole cut in one of the tips.
- You can also add some of the icing to 2 separate bowls and add some red and green food colouring for decorating parts of the cookies.
- Decorate the cooking as you prefer.
- Serve and enjoy your gingerbread men cookies.
