Day 17 - Gingerbread Cookies

Today we made adorable gingerbread cookies.  We have been making them for years but we wanted to improve our decorating skills so we thought these were a good way to practice and show our creative side.  Turns out I don't have one! I tried to do one and it was not so great, so I let Marissa do all the rest.  Hers were so cute! She definitely has the artist touch! Even if you don't think you could make them look that good, you should try them.  They taste great and they are fun to make, especially with kids.

Ingredients

3/4 cup (6 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature
3/4 cup firmly packed light brown sugar (I actually used dark)
1/4 cup molasses
2 egg yolks
2 and 1/3 cups unbleached all purpose flour
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
2 teaspoons ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground allspice
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon salt

In a bowl, using an electric mixer set on medium speed, beat together the butter, brown sugar and molasses until fluffy, about 3 minutes.  Beat in the egg yolks.  In a sifter, combine flour, cinnamon, ginger, allspice, baking soda, cloves and salt.  Sift the flour mixture directly onto the butter mixture or onto a piece of wax paper and then put into the mixing bowl.  Beat in dry ingredients on low speed until well combined.  Gather the dough into a ball, it will be soft.  Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight (I refrigerated for about 5-6 hours).

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Line cookie sheets with parchment paper.  Remove one-third of the dough from the refrigerator.  On a lightly floured work surface, roll it out to 1/4 inch thickness.  Using a ginger bread cookie cutter (5 inches long), cut out gingerbread people.  Carefully transfer the cookies to the prepared baking sheet, place the  about 1 inch apart.  Gather up the scraps into a ball and wrap in plastic wrap and chill.  Repeat rolling and cutting out the cookies with the remaining dough in two batches.  Then re-roll the scraps and cut out more cookies.

Bake until cookies begin to turn golden brown on the edges about 10 minutes (I did for 9 minutes).  Transfer to wire racks and let cool. Decorate the cooled cookies with white icing as desired.  Store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 1 week or you can freeze for a few weeks.

Recipe says it makes about 20 cookies (I made a few more as my cutter was a little smaller).

Icing (I did 1/4 a recipe and it was still a lot)

2 pounds powdered sugar
5 tablespoons meringue powder
2 teaspoons clear vanilla extract (I didn't use because I didn't have this)
3/4 cup room temperature water
1 tablespoon light corn syrup, for gloss (optional) (I didn't use)

Instructions:

Add the powdered sugar and meringue powder to a mixer bowl and mix for 30 seconds using the paddle attachment. (It's not necessary to sift the sugar beforehand.) Add the vanilla to the water and stir. With the mixer on its lowest setting, slowly add the water/vanilla mixture to the dry ingredients. As the water is added, the icing will become thick and lumpy. Continue to add the remaining water until the mixture reaches a honey-like consistency. At this point, turn the mixer to medium speed and mix for 1 minute. After the first minute, turn the mixer to high speed and mix an additional 2 minutes. Use a spray bottle to get extra powdered sugar off the edges of the mixing bowl. Mix in the corn syrup if desired. Add more sugar to get to the desired consistency (like the consistency of toothpaste). Immediately remove the icing and place in an airtight container. I put in a squeeze bottle and that is what we used to ice the cookies.  The meringue powder was great as it made the icing get hard reasonably fast.