Gingerbread Cookies

We discovered this gingerbread cookie dough when we made our own Gingerbread House. It makes such a wonderful ginger cookie, the flavor is just spicy enough, the cookie comes out firm enough to hold the cookie shapes well through the bake yet is still tender when you bite into it.

So nice it is that we now use the dough to whip up loads of simple gingerbread cookies to have around the house all through the holidays! Dress the cookies up with a bit of icing and you've got a great little holiday cookie ready in no time at all!

It's a quick easy dough loaded with a heavenly load of delectable and aromatic spices like ginger, cinnamon and cardamom that will warm you through and through with holiday spirit.

Did you know that in olden times in Europe, the gingerbread was quite the status symbol with folks vying to outdo each other with the fanciest and most decorated gingerbread cookies. (I know this because of GBBO, The Great British Bake Off...best baking show...ever...)

When you make cookie cutter cookies you want a dough that will keep it's edges nice and sharp during the bake. That way your cookies come out looking almost exactly like how you cut them out in the first place.

It never fails to amaze me how even just simple outlining can transform a cookie from the ordinary to the extraordinary. While for our Christmas Sugar Cookies we go all out with fancy decorations, for these cookie jar gingerbread cookies, a touch of white outline really does the trick and is pretty easy to do.

The icing we use here is royal icing, which is great because when once it's dry it's really smooth and firm. Since royal icing uses egg white, we like to pasteurize the egg first, as per our easy instructions below.

I'm excited about the coming holidays and starting to bake up a storm, how about y'all?!

Gingerbread Cookies Recipe
Prep time: 15 mins Cook time: 13 mins Decorate: 20 mins
(adapted from epicurious recipe here)

Ingredients:

2 1/4 cup all purpose flour, 281g
1 1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground cardamom
1/2 cup butter, room temperature, 113g
1/2 cup sugar, 100g
1 egg
1/4 cup maple syrup

Directions:

Sift together flour, ginger, cinnamon, baking soda, salt and cardamom. In mixing bowl, beat butter until pale and fluffy, add sugar and beat till incorporated. Add egg and mix in thoroughly. Add in maple syrup and incorporate thoroughly.

Now add in dry ingredients in 4 stages, mixing in until just incorporated each time, until a dough forms. Do not over mix. Wrap and chill in fridge until the dough is hard enough to roll out.

Preheat oven to 350°F (176°C). Roll out dough 1/4" thick. Use cookie cutter to cut out cookie shapes. Place cut out cookies on parchment lined baking sheet. Reroll leftover dough and cut out more cookie shapes.

Bake for 13 mins or until the cookies are just darkened at the edges. Let cool completely before decorating by piping on royal icing (see our recipe below).

Royal Icing Recipe

(Prep time: 7 mins)

Ingredients:

1 pasteurized egg whites (see recipe below)
1/3 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/3 cups icing sugar

Directions:

Beat egg white and vanilla til frothy. Add the sugar little by little until incorporated and shiny. Using high speed beat till soft peaks form, about 5 minutes.

The icing should be the correct thickness (like toothpaste thickness) for outlining the cookies. Use small squeeze bottles filled with icing to pipe out the cookie outlines or draw in details.

Tip: To adjust icing, add either more icing sugar (thicker) or very small amounts of water* (thinner). Use a water spray bottle to add water to icing if needed. Much easier to control the water amount.

Pasteurized Egg Recipe
(For the royal icing.) (Cook time: 5 mins)

Ingredients:

1 medium egg
1 cup water

Directions:

Allow egg to come to room temperature by leaving out for 1 hour. Fill small pot with water and carefully put egg in. Cook over medium heat until temperature reached 150F or 65C.

Remove from heat and let egg sit in pot for 3 minutes. Remove egg and allow to cool before using.

Christmas Cookies at The Hong Kong Cookery: