Gingerbread Cookies

Gingerbread cookies just smell like Christmas. These are a soft, chewy gingerbread cookie. They have a nice spice but they can be rolled out and decorated like sugar cookies.

Gingerbread Cookies

Recipe adapted from Allrecipes

1/2 cup unsalted butter

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup molasses

1 egg

2 cups all purpose flour

1/2 tsp salt

3/4 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp ground cloves

1 tsp ground ginger

1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

Beat together sugar and butter until creamy. Add molasses and egg and continue beating until smooth and creamy. Add spices and flour and mix until just incorporated. Form batter into a ball on plastic wrap, wrap tightly and refrigerate for at least 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line cookie sheets with parchment paper. Dust countertop with flour and roll out about 1/2 of the dough to 1/4" thickness. Cut into desired shapes and transfer cutouts to prepared pans. Bake approximately 8 - 10 minutes. Cool about 1 minute on pans and then transfer to wire racks and cool completely. Recipe yields about 3 dozen cookies, depending on size and thickness of cutouts.

Decorate as desired. I used white royal icing in a piping bag with Wilton tip #3 to decorate these. While the icing was still wet, I sprinkled them with white sanding sugar. Let dry at least 12 hours before storing them to make sure the royal icing has hardened. If you outline and flood the cookies with royal icing, let them dry for 24 hours.