How to Make Gingerbread Cookies For Christmas Recipe
If you’re looking for a simple yet delicious Christmas recipe to make with your kids, these soft gingerbread cookies are perfect! They’re chewy and pillowy, dotted with a good helping of warm spices and real molasses. They’re just the thing to bake for a family gathering, a cookie exchange, or even as a sweet treat to enjoy by yourself.
What You Need To Know
These cookies start with a buttery dough that’s mixed with molasses and a variety of classic holiday spices. The molasses gives them a richly dark, earthy flavor. You’ll use unsulphured molasses in this recipe, which is a type of molasses that’s made with mature sugarcane and doesn’t need sulfur dioxide added when it’s processed.
The dough is then rolled out and cut into shapes before baking. The cookies are baked until the edges are set and the middles are still soft. I like to bake them one sheet at a time on the center rack of my oven, which ensures that they cook evenly throughout.
Step 1: Mix Your Dough
In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat together the butter and brown sugar until light and fluffy. Add the egg, molasses, and vanilla extract. Next, combine the flour, baking soda, salt, and spices. Finally, gently mix the dough to bring everything together.
It’s best to work with the dough on a lightly floured surface. Be sure to dust the top and bottom of the dough, and roll it out to about 1/8-inch thick for softer cookies or 1/4-inch thick for crisper ones. You’ll need to add more flour under and on top of the dough if it begins to stick, so be sure to roll the dough well.
Once the dough has rolled out, cut out shapes with your favorite cookie cutters. Place the cookies on parchment-lined baking sheets, spacing them about 1 inch apart.
Let the cookies rest on the baking sheets for 5 minutes before transferring them to a wire rack to cool completely. When they’re totally cool, you can decorate them with royal icing, a simple glaze, or simply leave them plain.
The Cookies Are Baked and Ready to Decorate
Once you’ve baked the cookies, it’s time to get creative. You can decorate them with royal icing, glazes, and powdered sugar. Or you can pipe on fun decorations like eyes, buttons, and outlines!
You can also use a homemade piping bag, which is so easy to make. Just cut a small hole in the corner of the zip-top bag and fill it with your icing. Then, pipe the icing onto the cookies to make the desired shape and add a dot of frosting for the eye!
You can also decorate your cookies with royal icing, a simple dusting of powdered sugar, or even just leave them plain. The possibilities are endless, and these gingerbread cookies are sure to be a hit at your holiday gathering!