Gingerbread Cookies
It’s seems hard to believe as much as I love to bake but I can’t remember ever making gingerbread cookies until this year. My family usually makes sugar cookies each year and we have a good time decorating all the different shapes. I was sure I was going to win the cookie decorating contest over the Thanksgiving holiday at Loblolly Manor but my mom pulled a fast one on us at the last minute.
In the midst of our cookie creations she decided that my DAD would judge the contest. I was literally in the middle of making a purse when she dropped the news on us. I had to quickly switch gears and reshape my purse into the Liberty Bell. I definitely pulled it off but sadly my dad chose his namesake for the winner. I’ll give him credit he was diplomatic about it all. “This is the one I would most likely eat,” he said as he unknowing judged my cookie covered in tiny chocolate balls. “This is the one that looks like it took the most time,” he said as he judged the tiny forest of trees my sweet sister LiLi put on her cookie. “But if you want me to judge which one is the prettiest, I guess I’d have to go with the snowflake.” JD was almost gleaming with as much pride as her sugar crystals. We are so on for a rematch next year ha ha!
We had so much fun making cookies together I decided to try out the gingerbread recipe from one of my Pioneer Woman cookbooks. In her book, she’s actually using the recipe for 2 dimensional gingerbread houses, which is another thing I definitely want to try next year. We usually just buy the kits or us Graham Crackers. Since the recipe in the book is copyrighted, here is a fun video of Ree and her girls making gingerbread cookies.
I was shocked it took so many cups of flour – 6! But the spices from the nutmeg, cloves, cinnamon, ginger and all spice smelled so good.
The swirls of molasses and brown sugar were so pretty.
I gotta tell ya, I was a tad worried when my dough came out a bit crumbly and not very dark in color.
Plastic wrap is so much fun, right? Like when you can’t find the end of a piece of tape fun and you continue to get little tiny bits of tape that aren’t long enough to start an actual piece ha ha.
2 hours of chilling in the refrigerator later and we’re good to go.
Rolling the dough between two sheets of plastic wrap worked out really well so give it a try if you don’t use this technique already.
I have lots of different shaped cookie cutters. They’re mostly vintage and I’m always on the lookout for new ones.
16 minutes later and we have gingerbread gold.
I added a little bit of embellishments
and these sweet treats are ready for Santa.
I’ll be back to wish you guys a Merry Christmas tomorrow. See you then!
Many blessings,
CoCo
CoCo-What fun this must have been! Such a wonderful family tradition. Wish this computer screen was scratch-n-sniff – we could smell the wonderful spices. Your cookies are adorable! Love, hugs and best wishes for a wonderful Christmas!
Thanks so much ladies! I almost ran out of yellow making all those cookies with blond/blonde hair and blue eyes. Thankfully, I had plenty of brown for little Cannon. They’re such sweet kids. Hugs, CoCo