Gingerbread cookies

Festive piping fun :)

gingerbread

Ingredients

Cookies:
  • 145g unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
  • 150g brown sugar
  • 160g unsulphured molasses (used 200g last time for convenience)
  • 1 large egg, at room temperature
  • 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
  • 440g all-purpose flour
  • 1 tsp baking soda
  • ½ tsp salt
  • 1 Tbsp ground ginger (yep, it's a lot, it's wonderful)
  • 1 Tbsp ground cinnamon
  • ½ tsp ground allspice
  • ½ tsp ground cloves
Royal icing:
  • 1 egg white
  • 200g icing sugar
  • ⅓ tsp liquid glucose
  • ⅓ tsp lemon juice

Instructions

Cookies:
  1. Cream the butter for a minute on medium speed, before adding the sugar and molasses. Beat on a higher speed until combined.
  2. Scrape down the sides of the bowl, and beat in the egg, as well as the vanilla extract on high speed for 2 minutes. Don't panic if it separates a bit.
  3. In a different bowl, whisk the flour, baking soda, salt, ginger, cinnamon, allspice, and cloves together.
  4. Add these in with the wet ingredients a little at a time, beating on a low speed. The dough will get nice and thick, keep going until you've mixed in all the dry ingredients.
  5. Split the dough into two halves, and shape them into rough discs. Wrap them up in cling film and chill in the fridge overnight (or for at least 3 hours). They can keep for about 3 days if you want to stagger your baking.
  6. Preheat the oven to 180C.
  7. Flour a work surface, your hands, and your rolling pin, and roll out one of the cookie dough discs into a 1cm-thick sheet. Pick it up and rotate slightly as you roll in different directions to avoid it sticking to the surface, and cracking too much along the edges.
  8. Cut with whatever cookie cutter shapes you have on hand, and place about 2cm apart on a baking tray (with a baking sheet ready).
  9. Bake for about 9-10 minutes. Longer baking times tend to produce crunchier cookies, where as shorter times leave them softer and chewier.
  10. Allow to cool on a wire rack, and get going on the decorating if your icing is ready!
Royal icing:
  1. Whisk the egg white lightly, then add the icing sugar a little at a time.
  2. When all the icing sugar has been added, add the glucose and lemon juice too.
  3. Keep whisking until the thickness of the icing allows it to hold little peaks. It should be smooth and shiny.
  4. Add food colouring if you want to make things more interesting.
  5. All done, pipe away!

Makes about 40 cookies.

Inspired by gingerbread cookies recipe here, and royal icing recipe from here.