Sunday, December 7, 2008

Gingerbread Cookies!

Since I can remember, every Christmas season I've decorated and baked gingerbread cookies. There's something about the smell of gingerbread that makes me think, "Christmas is here!" On Sunday, Mike and I held a gingerbread baking and decorating social for the residents in our apartment complex. He was in charge of the icing, while I was in charge of the dough. We made two batches of dough, and baked over 150 cookies!
I follow my mom's foolproof gingerbread cookie recipe. It's not too sweet, so it's a perfect base for adding oodles of frosting and candies too. Plus, the dough is very forgiving, so you can handle it a lot and will still end up with a nice texture. It's an excellent dough for little kids to play/shape cookies from.
Here's the Foolproof recipe:
Part A
1 1/8cup margarine
1 1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup molasses

Part B
5 1/4 cup AP flour
3 t. baking soda
1/2 t. salt
2 t. ground cinnamon
1 1/4 t. ground ginger
1 1/4 f. ground cloves

Preheat oven to 375F. Cream all the ingredients in Part A. Combine all the ingredients in Part B. Mix the two parts together. Shape the gingerbread and decorate with candy (m&m's, sprinkles, candy bits, etc). Place on cookie sheets. Bake for 10-12 minutes in oven. (I rolled out the dough and used cookie cutters, but you can shape the gingerbread by hand. Also, I baked some plain gingerbread and decorated them with frosting after they came out of the oven).

Mike's decorating skills (see above).
My decorating skills (see above).
I had to highlight one resident's super meticulous cookie decorating skills (see above).

5 comments:

K and S said...

miss the smell of gingerbread, love these cookies, so cute!

Diana said...

Oooh that sounds like so much fun! What a great idea. I spent two days baking our gingerbread house and it smelled so delicious.

Anonymous said...

That's a great tradition, I'm glad you're keeping it going!

Chou said...

Hey! You stole my next blog post! :) I love gingerbread everything. It makes my feet tingle with happiness.

genkitummy said...

Thanks Kat!

Diana-i just checked out your gingerbread houses. They must have taken a lot of time to make! They are so pretty!

Thanks Lori!

Chou-sorry about that. If you were here, I'd definitely invite you to the cookie-making. This year, the gingerbread dough worked out well. not like the sugar cookie dough I made for the other cookie social.