Fun Gingerbread Cookies Recipe
Recreating Gingy at home is fun, and this homemade gingerbread cookies recipe is delicious and easy-to-make!
Ingredients
- ⅔ cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
- ¾ cups brown sugar
- ⅔ cup molasses
- 1 large egg
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 3½ cups all-purpose flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp baking soda
- ½ tsp salt
- 1 tbsp ground ginger
- ½ tsp nutmeg
- ½ tsp clove powder
Gumdrop buttons
- 1½ tbsps flavored gelatin powder
- 1½ tsp hydrated unflavored gelatin powder
- ½ cup water
Icing
- 1½ tbsp meringue powder
- 2 cups powdered sugar
- 2 tbsps warm water
Instructions
- In a bowl, beat butter at room temperature until it's soft. Then, add brown sugar and mix well. Beat in molasses, and add eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Now add vanilla extract and keep mixing for a couple of minutes.
- In a separate bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients: flour, baking powder, ginger powder, baking soda, and salt. With the mixer on low speed, slowly add dry ingredients to the bowl with the wet mixture. Incorporate in small amounts, beating until integrating everything. The dough will look a bit dry, but you'll know it's done when it gets thick and compact.
- Take all the dough from the bowl, split it into two discs, and wrap each disc in plastic. Then, stick into the fridge for 3 hours.
- Flour a clean surface generously because the gingerbread dough is very sticky. Put one disc on the floured surface and flatten it with a rolling pin, previously floured. Stretch the dough until it's around 1/2 inch thick.
- Now, it's time to cut the cookies. You can use a gingerbread cookie cutter or my template. Then, transfer each cookie to a baking tray lined with parchment paper. Now, you can soften the borders if you want. I used a chopstick for this.
- To recreate Gingy's legs, make a straight mark on each leg. Now, place in a preheated oven at 350 °F for 10 minutes.
- While the cookies are baking and cooling down, you can prepare the decorations. Start with the royal icing, mixing powdered sugar and powdered meringue in a bowl. Whisk and add water at room temperature. Beat until it's homogeneous and shiny.
- Split the icing into three small containers. Then, add blue gel food coloring and red to the other. Now save white icing for the rest of the decoration.
- Now, make one of the most memorable decor pieces: gumdrop buttons. In a separate small bowl, mix powdered unflavored gelatin and water. Put water to medium heat on a pan and add violet flavored gelatin. Then, mix both in the pan and make a thin gelatin layer in a container with a flat bottom. Then, let it cool in the fridge for 20 minutes or until it's solid.
- By now, the cookies should be at room temperature. Fill a piping bag with the white icing and decorate, using a picture as a reference. If you make a mistake, don't fret, you can use a toothpick to make corrections—Decor the arms, eyes, and legs. Remember to draw a few straight lines to recreate Gingy's legs. Then, use the blue icing for the eyebrows and the red icing for the mouth.
- Once the gumdrop is ready, cut the buttons using a round piping bag tip. Cover the buttons with sugar and add a bit of white icing to stick the gumdrop buttons to the gingerbread.
- And it's done! If you have the heart to eat these cute gingerbread cookies, you can do it now.
Video
Notes
