Gingerbread Cookies

Hello, all! The countdown to Christmas is on! Hopefully you’re all getting to spend some time with family and/or friends over the next few days. I know for many people, that involves Christmas cookie baking! I personally do not enjoy making roll-out cookies, but I usually break out the cookie cutters around Christmas time for the tradition of it. As mentioned in my previous post with the chocolate truffles, I had several parties in the same week so I needed to make a huge batch of treats to feed everyone. I pulled out my mom’s old recipe for gingerbread cookies and got fantastic reviews, so I figured I would share it with you all!

Ingredients:

5 + 1/2 cups flour
2 tsp ginger
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp cloves
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup vegetable shortening
1 cup sugar
1 cup molasses
2 eggs

Sift together flour, ginger, cinnamon, baking soda, nutmeg, cloves, and salt. Set aside.

Melt shortening; stir in sugar and molasses. Stir in eggs.

Beat in half of flour mixture, then stir/beat in remaining half. Side note- you may need to mix this by hand as the mixture gets stiffer. I actually made 1.5 times this recipe to make even more cookies and almost broke my stand mixer. Hooray for manpower!

Divide dough in half, wrap in plastic wrap, and chill ~ 1 hour (as mentioned above, I made extra mix so I actually divided mine into thirds- one third for each party that week!).

Roll dough, one chilled section at a time, onto a flour surface, to about 1/4″ thick. Cut out shapes and place on a greased baking sheet (can also use a silicone baking mat instead of greasing).

Bake at 375°F for 6-8 minutes. Let them cool on a cooling rack and then decorate. I topped some of mine with powdered sugar and some with icing (recipe below).

Icing Recipe: 1 cup powdered sugar, 1/4 tsp vanilla, and milk to desired consistency. Beat with hand mixer or whisk until smooth. Pipe or spread onto cookies as desired.