Saturday, December 19, 2009

gingerbread girls and boys

What describes Christmas more than Gingerbread cookies?? There so cute!!! I have to admit that I've never actually made them before!! I usually just make sugar cookies, but I've seen these all over this year that I thought I really needed to try to do my own!! I really love the taste of these cookies too. Depending on your preference you can either make them a little thicker and get a softer cookie or thinner and get a crispier cookie, I preferred the crispier ones especially with coffee!!! yum!!

This recipe is from Martha Stewart, that woman knows her recipes!! Shes not my favorite person to watch on t.v. but I love her website and her recipes.




1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup firmly packed dark-brown sugar
1 large egg
1/2 cup unsulfured molasses
2 1/4 teaspoons ground cinnamon
2 teaspoons ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground allspice
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
4 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
Sanding sugar and miniature candies, for decorating

Directions
1.In a large bowl, beat butter and sugar on high speed until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Add egg; mix well. Beat in molasses, cinnamon, ginger, allspice, baking soda, and salt. On low speed, add flour a cup at a time, mixing until incorporated.
2.Divide dough into quarters; shape into disks, and wrap into plastic. Refrigerate until firm, about 3 hours.
3.Preheat oven to 375 degrees with racks in top and bottom third. On a lightly floured work surface, roll out a dough disk to 1/8 inch thick. Cut out cookies, rolling out any scraps and additional disks as needed until you have about 20 kids. Transfer to parchment-paper-lined baking sheets, leaving 1 inch between cookies. With remaining dough, cut out additional kids to make clothes, jewelry, and hair as desired. Dress cookies, and refrigerate 20 minutes.
4.Bake cookies, two sheets at a time, 7 minutes; rotate pans top to bottom and front to back, and continue baking until cookies are firm when touched, about 6 to 8 minutes more. Let cool on baking sheets 5 minutes. Transfer to wire racks; let cool completely. Decorate cookies as desired.




Thats her exact recipe word for word, I didn't refridgerate mine after I got them cut out, they seemed to work fine for me, I added suspenders and aprons to my girls. I also used Royal Icing for the decorations, I have discovered that the taste of Royal Icing is kinda lacking, but its great for cookies like these that you aren't using a ton of icing and you can stack them without worrying about your decorations, I added some lemon extract to the royal icing to add a tiny bit of flavor!!
-3 T. Meringue Powder
- 1 lb powdered sugar
- 3 T. water(or more depending on the consistency you want
- 1/2 tsp lemon extract
with you whip attachment on your stand mixer beat for about 15 minutes on medium, until its glossy and forms peaks.








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1 comment:

  1. Hi Laura! Your gingerbread folk look great - I think I've got the same exact Martha recipe bookmarked to make this week, but I doubt I can get them to look as cute as yours. Good to see another Newport/Toledo person wandering about!

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