Gingerbread cookies completely signify Christmas baking without which the celebrations would not be complete. These cookies have beautiful crisp edges while the centre is soft, that perfect sweetness & rich flavor from molasses and well balanced spiciness make them absolute season favorite with all. It’s definitely feeling Christmas now!!
Gingerbread Man
Holiday baking is on full swing in my kitchen and this time it is these cute little Gingerbread man. I have been living on piles of flour, powdered sugar all over, containers full of chocolate, sugar on my camera and no matter how much I clean myself I can still feel sugar on me. My apron is so damn full of chocolate and flour but I’m enjoying all this, after all it does not happen every day. Am I the only one, well all my friends would be on a baking spree like me. It’s so much fun isn’t it??
Now that Christmas is here the festival of fun, family get togethers, shopping and loads of good food. Eating loads of butter, sugar is not healthy but it is the holiday season after all and my diet is going for a toss but that should be ok isn’t it after all we don’t indulge in baked stuff throughout the year.
Gingerbread Man
Of all the cookies that I have been baking these cute little Gingerbread men hold a special place in my heart. They are so much epitome to Christmas baking, and the best thing is as much as the kids love the shape they liked the flavor as well. The best thing with them is the decorating part, they get so creative with those colorful icing and have whole loads of fun decorating them. Involving kids in decorating these cookies is such a fun thing, the happiness, the excitement on their face is so satisfactory. The man with with yellow and green buttons or their scarfs or some covered with chocolate were too cute to actually eat. But we had a gala time today!!
The cute little and adorable men made perfect cookies, the texture of the cookies were absolutely beautiful crisp on the outside and semi soft on the inside exactly the way I like my cookies. I don’t enjoy cookies that are very crispy, the texture of these cookies are exactly what I enjoy cookies. With the perfect balance of sweetness and spiciness these cookies are an absolute winner with all. Here I have added little more ginger powder for that extra gingery taste, I love ginger but you can always reduce the quantity if you are not a ginger fan. Apart from the ginger, cinnamon, all spice, clove give a very beautiful flavor to the gingerbread man cookies.
The dough here is pretty simple to make just beat up the ingredients together and there you are done. The most important thing to remember here is chilling the dough, since the dough is quite sticky it is absolutely mandatory to chill the dough for no less than 3 hours, I chilled mine overnight. You can simply wrap the dough tightly in cling film and refrigerate. It made the dough quite manageable and easier to roll, since rolling is not that easy it is highly recommended to flour the surface well before rolling, flour your rolling pin as well and hey don’t be worried about that extra flour it will be baked off with the cookies and you will not feel that extra flour in the baked cookies. Be quick with the rolling and cut the cookie process otherwise the dough becomes very soft in the entire process. Once the cookies have been cut refrigerate them for 10 – 15 minutes before baking. The Gingerbread men don’t really spread during the baking process and hardly take any time to bake.
Gingerbread Man
Time to decorate your cookies, involve your kids give them different colored icing and let them use their creativity and you will be surprised how much patience and how well they would decorate their gingerbread men. Holiday season is a such beautiful so people spice up your family time and let the bond be stronger.
“Jingle bells jingle bells jingle all the way.
Merry Christmas to all”
Recipe for Gingerbread Man Cookies
Ingredients
·3 cups all purpose flour
·1 tsp ground ginger
·½ ground cloves
·1/4 tsp nutmeg
·150 grams light brown sugar
·2/3 cup unsulphered molasses
·140 grams unsalted butter
·1 tsp pure vanilla extract
·1/2 tsp baking soda
·1 tsp baking powder
·2 tsp cinnamon powder
·1 large egg
·¼ tsp salt
Instructions
· Take a large bowl add butter and using a handheld mixer beat butter on high for a minute till
creamy. Add light brown sugar, molasses and beat until combined and creamy. Next beat in vanilla extract and egg till well combined. Scrape down the side of the bowl.
·Take a medium bowl and whisk in flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, clove powder and powdered ginger until well combined. Next add the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients and beat on low speed until just combined. The dough here would be very sticky and thick. Since we cannot roll the sticky dough it needs to be refrigerated. Divide the dough into half and place each half into a cling wrap and wrap the dough tightly and pat it down to form a disc. Refrigerate for minimum 3 – 5 hours or overnight. I chilled my dough overnight.
·Once the dough has been chilled preheat the oven to 180 degrees C. Line a baking tray with parchment paper and set aside.
··Remove the disc of the chilled cookie dough from the refrigerator. Flour the work counter and rolling pin generously. While rolling keep flouring as the dough becomes sticky. Roll until 1/4th inch thick and cut into desired shape.
Place the cut shape into the lined baking sheet 2 inch apart and refrigerate for 5 – 10 minutes. Repeat the process till the entire dough has been used up.
·Bake for 10 -12 minutes, remove from oven and allow to cool on the baking tray itself, transfer onto the wire rack to allow to cool completely.
·Ice your gingerbread man cookies as desired using different colored royal icing.
