Gingerbread Cookies and Icing

Gingerbread Cookies & Icing

For Cookies:

·        2/3 c Butter - you can use shortening, if you prefer.

·        1/2 c Sugar

·        1/2 c Molasses or 1/3 c firmly packed brown sugar

·        1 Egg

·        3 c Flour - spooned and leveled, not scooped and leveled

·        1 tsp Baking Soda

·        1 tsp Cinnamon

·        1 tsp Ginger

·        1 tsp Cloves

·        1/2 tsp Nutmeg

·        1/2 tsp Salt

**Before you start, the dough has to chill a couple hours before you roll it and cut it, if you want to use cookie cutters and have it keep a good shape when it bakes. 

Cream butter and sugar, then add molasses and egg and mix well.  If you’re subbing brown sugar for molasses, just cream it with the butter. 

Sift the dry ingredients together, or if you’re lazy like me, just sort of whisk it around with a fork really well, so it’s all mixed together good, then add that gradually to the sugary goo. 

**This next bit can be skipped, if you just want to do drop cookies**

Divide this into sections.  Some folks say half, but I think half is too large, unless you’re fast or have no distractions.  I have found that dividing the dough in half it still warms up too much and sticks to my cookie cutters, the pastry mat, me... So I divide mine into quarters, roll it in balls, wrap it with plastic wrap, and chill for 2 hours. 

Once the dough has chilled and you’re getting ready to roll it out, preheat your oven to 350.  Roll out to about 1/8th of an inch thick.  Eyeballing isn’t my strong suit, but my woodworking husband told me that a lot of measuring tools are 1/8th of an inch thick standard so carpenters and woodworkers can know how much to alter their plans for cuts.  Pretty cool!  So I borrow his plastic square and lay it next to my dough as a guide for thickness.  Not that it really makes a huge difference one way or the other if they’re a little thicker or a little thinner.  They’ll still taste good, just might be a bit softer or crunchier depending on whether you went thicker or thinner. 

Anyways, back on track. 

Ok, so you roll it out, cut it with your cookie cutters, or if you skipped the chilling part, just do your drop cookies, whatever floats your boat.  You can grease or flour your cookie cutters, if you feel the need.  If the dough is still cold, I didn’t have problems with sticking.  Once it warmed up, it didn’t seem anything helped, so I leave that to your best judgement.

Bake on a greased cookie sheet for 9-11 minutes, just till the edges firm.

The cookies have to cool completely before you ice them, if you want the icing to be neat.  If you like warm melty icing on warm soft cookies, trust me, I won’t judge. 

If you want to let the icing harden, just leave them out on the cookie sheet, don’t cover them.  Once the icing has set, you can put them in zippy bags, a cookie tin, or whatever, and they keep for quite a long time.  I think Little Bell ate the last one almost two weeks after I baked them, and they were still pretty soft, just starting to get a little more crumbly.

For Icing:

·       
1 & 1/2 c Powdered Sugar

·        1/2 tsp Vanilla Extract

·        1 tsp Corn Syrup

·        2 - 2 & 1/2  Tbs Warm Water

Whisk this all together until it ribbons.  Ribboning is when you can drizzle some on top, and it sits there for a bit, keeping its form a few seconds before it sinks back into the rest.  I wish I had taken a picture, but taking one-handed pictures with a cell phone is also not my strong suit.  One of these days I intend to get a real camera.

You may need more sugar or more water, depending on your humidity at the time.  Just add one or the other in 1 Tbs increments until you get it thick or thin as you want it.

If you are going for a neatly decorated cookie, this icing takes about 24 hours to set up and become hard, again, depending on your humidity.  You *can* pipe it with a piping bag.  If you manage it without squishing it all over yourself, drizzling it all over the counter, and generally making a big ole mess, my hat is off to you.  I made a mess.  A big mess.  It oozed out of the top of my piping bag, all over my hands, and dripped down all over the counter, the floor, the cookie sheet... Next time, I am going to use some squeezy bottles, and I am glad our dog answers to "dammit."

If you want to color the icing, I’d use the powdered coloring you can get for cake decorating, because that won’t thin it out.  The liquid food coloring works just fine, but the added liquid will thin your icing, and you may have to add more sugar, which will lighten the color, so it's kind of a vicious cycle.  

It looks like a lot, but they’re actually really easy.  This is the first cut-out cookie I’ve ever had any luck with.  I usually wind up with misshapen blobs that only slightly resemble whatever the heck they were supposed to be when I cut them out.  The flavor is intensely ginger-spicy.  I may have to tinker with them to get them a little more to get the flavor just right for us.  Pa didn't much care for them.  Little Bell *loved* them.  I was on the fence, but was happy they turned out.  

Time for me to get back to work.  I'll see y'all next time!