Rolled Gingerbread Cookies

Gingerbread is one of those cookies that is just a standard to have during the holidays. They are spicy, chewy and can be cut in cute holiday shapes! My siblings and I used to get the Little Debbie gingerbreads and fight over them at the house. 🙂

I decided to include these in my coworker’s baked goodies tins because they looked easy and it was something new to bake. Being that I’ve never worked with molasses, I have to admit, I thought it was going to smell like brown sugar or something similar. No way folks…this has a very different smell than imagined. In fact, I thought I had a batch of bad molasses, but I kept going with the recipe and it turns out that molasses do indeed smell unpleasant normally.

This recipe is easy to work with and yields a delicious gingerbread cookie. You will not be disappointed at all.

Rolled Gingerbread Cookies
Source: Cookie Craft

Ingredients:

• 5 cups all purpose flour
• 2 tsp. ground ginger
• 1 tsp. ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp. ground cloves
• 1/2 tsp. baking soda (if using this recipe to make a gingerbread house, omit the baking soda)
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• zest of one orange
• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1 cup molasses

Directions:

1. Cream together the butter and sugar for 2 minutes or until light and fluffy. Add the egg and molasses and mix until blended.
2. Put the flour, spices, baking soda, salt and orange zest in a medium bowl and whisk mixture together.
3. With the mixer on low, gradually add the dry mixture to the wet mixture until the two are well blended.
4. Put the dough in 3 even portions, formed into a rough disk and chill the dough in the fridge for a few hours.
5. When you are ready to bake the dough, preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
6. Cut the dough into desired shapes and place on a parchment/Silpat lined cookie sheet. ( I dipped one side of the cookie in sprinkles before placing on the cookie sheet.)
7. Bake in the middle rack of your oven for 12-16 minutes for larger cookies; 7-9 minutes for smaller cookies or until the dough darkens a little along the edges.
8. Cool cookies completely for decorating.

Makes about 36 3″ sized cookies, which equates to almost one double batch of sugar cookies.