A Christmas classic, these spicy Gingerbread cookies are really easy to make and are perfect to keep you warm this winter!
Christmas is here!
The season of fuzzy socks, hot chocolate and some gingerbread cookies is here! All one really needs this festive season is some festive eating, so I bring you these ever so popular (for obvious reasons) and easy to make Gingerbread cookies. You will be surprised to know that I have never baked gingerbread anything before and I’m glad to report back that they’re not as intimidating as they look and sound. These gingerbread cookies are actually like any other cookies that you’ll find on my blog only with icing, which again is my easy version!
Gingerbread cookies are like any other cookies, the only difference is you use molasses or honey in them, I obviously went for the honey because it’s easier to find and these cookies still taste great. But I did use dark brown sugar which has plenty of molasses in it already. Another ingredient that you simply cannot miss is ginger powder, now before you freak out let me just tell you that ginger powder is not difficult to find. So head over to the nearest supermarket and get a jar. It’s pretty cheap too.
Ideally the icing on gingerbread cookies or sugar cookies is royal icing which is egg whites and sugar, but I cannot fathom the thought of raw eggs topped on my cookies, so I went for my easier and equally delicious cookie icing made using icing sugar, vanilla and teeny bit of milk. It tastes great and there’s no raw poultry so we’re all safe! 😀
I made two versions of gingerbread cookies, one is the regular version with cookie icing and the other was cut in shapes of Christmas trees to give these an added festive look, I decorated them with sprinkles! Don’t they look phenomenal? I cannot stop looking at these and it makes it so hard for me concentrate on the eating bit. :p
You can go crazy all you want and create as many types of cookies for your friends and family! Just have fun doing it!
- For the Gingerbread Cookies
- • Flour, 2 cups or 250 grams
- • Ginger Powder, 2 teaspoons
- • Cinnamon Powder, 1 teaspoon
- • Baking Powder, 1 teaspoon
- • Salt, ¼ teaspoon
- • Softened Butter, 1 cup or 200 grams
- • Light Brown Sugar, ½ cup
- • Dark Brown Sugar, ¼ cup
- • Honey, 3 tablespoons
- • Egg, 1 (at room temp.)
- • Vanilla essence, 1 teaspoon
- For the Icing
- • Icing sugar, 175 grams
- • Vanilla essence, 1 teaspoon
- • Milk, 1-2 tablespoons
- • Food color (red/pink), a couple of drops
- • Sprinkles
- In a bowl, sift together flour, ginger powder, cinnamon powder, baking powder and salt and keep aside.
- In a separate bowl, whisk butter until pale in colour (for about 2 minutes). Add the sugars to it and whisk until they're combined (about 2-3 minutes). If you cannot find dark brown sugar use light brown sugar in place of it. Avoid using white granulated sugar in the recipe because as you see from the first picture, it's clearly visible.
- Add in the honey, egg and vanilla essence and mix until they're combined. Avoid over mixing at this stage.
- Add in the dry ingredients that you set aside in the first step to the wet ingredients little by little and keep mixing with a spatula until everything is combined and you have a dough. The dough will be tough to get together in the beginning but you can add a teaspoon of milk to help you get it together. Do not make it too wet but the dough shouldn't too hard to work with too at this stage.
- Cover the dough with foil and refrigerate it for 3 hours or overnight.
- Take the dough out and start preheating your oven at 180 degrees Celsius.
- Roll out the dough to about ⅛th of an inch thick and cut out shapes using cookie cutters. You can use any cookie cutter that you fancy. Make sure you sprinkle flour or icing sugar on the kitchen top and on the dough to avoid sticking. (P.S. - in the picture below my cookie dough is inverted, please always keep the sharp side down unlike me :p)
- You may have to do this in batches depending upon the size of your oven. Bake the first batch and cover the dough for the second batch so that it doesn't dry out. Once your first batch is ready, you can start rolling the second batch and making cookies like usual.
- Once you cut out shapes, transfer them to a baking tray and bake the cookies for about 12 minutes at 180 degrees celsius. If they're not golden just yet, bake them for 3 more minutes until the edges start to become golden.
- Cookies will be soft when you take them out so them cool as they will slightly harden after that.
- While your cookies are cooling down you can prepare your icing, mix icing sugar, vanilla and milk in a bowl using a spoon until you have a white thick cookie icing. Whisk this for a minute so that no lumps are formed.
- Take ⅓rd of this icing and transfer it to a second bowl. Add food color to to it and leave the larger portion of the icing white, you're going to need a lot of white.
- Start the fun part! Decorating!
- Step 1: Outline the gingerbread man cookies with white icing and make eyes, smile and buttons using the colored icing.
- Step 2: Outline the Christmas tree cookies with white icing and then fill it will white icing too. You can also go for a green color. Top with sprinkles while the icing is still wet and let it dry down.
- Step 3; Leave the cookies to dry down for about 2 hours.
Looking for some more Christmassy recipes? Try these..
Dark Chocolate Raspberry Brownies
White Chocolate Cranberry Cookies
Caramel Brownies
Red Velvet Chocolate Swirl Brownie Bars
Adorable gingerbread cookies!
Hey Radhika! I haven’t seen your blog in forever! I hope your holiday has been going well! Love these gingerbread men. 🙂
Hi Kloe! It has been forever..hope you’re doing good and thank you so much! 🙂
Hey, Can i substitute egg in this recipe?