I am a member of the political action committee that cookies should be soft. Like gooey. Cookie dough is so good, the baked product should not be not as good as that. A frequent offender of this virtue is gingerbread cookies.
Too oft they are a dust brick of a cookie that deteriorates into mouth sand! Yeah nope. I need christmas nostalgia, but the cookies still have to be good. No free passes to be bad just because you’re a traditional food.
Finally and furthermore, I used these cookie cutters. I do the small boy one (it’s a whole gingerbread family for $7!) for ours because I like that it has the most rudimentary and old fashioned feel. For that reason I don’t usually put frosting on because it feels a little more pleasantly little house on the prairie without it. But if I am going to pipe on some faces or buttons I’d use this vanilla buttercream that is my one and only frosting love.
SOFT GINGERBREAD COOKIES
24 cookies
1/2 cup molasses
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup milk
2 tablespoons butter, softened
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 batch of vanilla buttercream frosting (optional)
Preheat oven to 350. Combine ingredients in a stand mixer. Mix until a uniform dough forms. Chill for at least 2 hours. Roll dough out onto a floured surface. Cut gingerbread shapes with a cookie cutter. Bake on a parchment lined baking sheet for 8-10 minutes.
- ½ cup molasses
- ⅓ cup brown sugar
- ¼ cup milk
- 2 tablespoons butter, softened
- ½ teaspoon vanilla
- 2 cups flour
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon ground ginger
- ¼ teaspoon ground cloves
- ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ½ batch of vanilla buttercream frosting (optional)
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- Combine ingredients in a stand mixer. Mix until a uniform dough forms.
- Chill for at least 2 hours.
- Roll dough out onto a floured surface. Cut gingerbread shapes with a cookie cutter.
- Bake on a parchment lined baking sheet for 8-10 minutes.