I recently found out that November 21st is National Gingerbread Cookie Day. One of the facts I saw was that Nuremburg, Germany is the gingerbread capital of the world. Who knew? Just in time for holiday baking practice.
I will be baking a few batches to send to family, maybe. I tried a new recipe and I really like how the cookies turned out. They came out very tasty but I needed more ginger or maybe fresh ginger. I mixed a couple of recipes, so I am listing what I used here.
Gingerbread Cookie Recipe
Ingredients
- 455 grams (2 cups) King Arthur Baking All-Purpose Flour
- ¼ teaspoon Diamond Kosher Salt Flakes
- ½ teaspoon allspice
- ¼ teaspoon nutmeg (fresh if you have it)
- ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 56 grams (4 tablespoons) Kerrygold Unsalted Butter, softened
- 56 grams (¼ cup) light brown sugar
- ½ to 1 teaspoon ginger, depending on taste
- 1 large egg
- 85 grams (1/3 cup) Grandma’s® Molasses (Unsulphured) Original
Directions
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, salt, allspice, cloves, nutmeg and cinnamon.
- In a stand mixer, beat together the butter and brown sugar until light and fluffy. Note: This may take a few minutes.
- Add ginger and beat until combined.
- Add the egg and molasses, and beat until combined.
- Add the dry ingredients into the wet in 2 increments, beating between each addition.
- Form a dough ball, cover in plastic wrap and chill for about an hour. Yes, chill for 1 hour or more.
- Preheat the oven to 350.
- Divide the dough in two pieces, and roll each piece out on a floured surface to a little more than ¼" thick. Cut out as many shapes as you can, re-roll dough scraps, and cut out more. Repeat with other half of dough.
- On a parchment or silicone lined baking sheet, bake the cookies for 11 -13 minutes for soft cookies, or a few minutes longer for crisp ones. The soft cookies won't work for building a gingerbread house but decorating and eating work.
- Let cookies cool on the baking sheet for a few minutes before moving to a wire rack to cool completely.
First Cookie Decorating Party 2019So what about decorating the cookies? I didn't grow up decorating cookies or anything. I had a cookie party for the first time a few years ago. Here's how it turned out. A couple of weeks ago, I met with Chef Christy Sharp to get some tips on improving my decorating skills (more to come on this).
I "cheated" a little and used sprinkles to mimic colored lights so I didn't have to mix several batches of colored icing. I probabaly should have used larger sprinkles. I have a LOT of practice coming up.
