Get ready to have some fun baking your holiday cookies! These cookies are dark and beautiful with a soft texture and spicy, just-sweet-enough flavor. Don’t try to get the icing perfect — just lay your cookies out on sheets of wax paper and have fun piping clothes and other designs. (Or just leave the cookies plain — did I mention that they are delicious?) I remember having especially good decorating karma the year I was able to make Christopher his own gingerbread man, complete with turtleneck, corduroy pants and cap. (He loved it!)
Blackstrap Gingerbread Cookies
makes 3 - 4 dozen cookies, depending on your cookie cutter sizes
Ingredients
- 1 ½ cups unsalted butter softened to room temperature
- 1 cup blackstrap molasses
- 1 cup dark brown sugar
- ½ tsp kosher salt
- 2 eggs large
- 4 ⅔ cups unbleached, wheat flour
- 4 tsp ground ginger
- 3 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1 tsp baking soda
- ½ tsp ground cloves
Icing (optional)
- 1 ½ cups powdered sugar
- 2 tbsp cream or milk
Instructions
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Cream butter, molasses and brown sugar in the workbowl of an electric mixer with the paddle attachment. Add salt and mix. Add eggs, one at a time and mix.
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In a separate bowl, whisk flour with the spices and baking soda. Add flour mixture to creamed butter and sugar and mix to combine.
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Lay 3 sheets of plastic wrap (about 20 inches each) on a cool work surface (marble or granite cutting board or countertop is ideal) and mound 1/3 of the dough on each of the plastic pieces (dough will be very soft – don’t worry!) Pat each mound of dough into a disk and wrap with the plastic. Chill in the refrigerator until firm, at least 1 hour or up to 3 days.
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When you are ready to bake the cookies, preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Line 2 cookie sheet pans each with a Silpat or piece of baking parchment. Remove one disk of dough from the refrigerator, remove plastic wrap and place dough on a lightly floured work surface. Let dough warm slightly (about 10 – 15 minutes at room temperature), then roll dough to about ¼-inch thickness using a floured rolling pin. Cut out gingerbread men (yes, they can be women too) or other shapes and transfer cookies to cookie sheet pan (I like to use a bench scraper to do this) and bake 8 – 10 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool on sheet pans for 5 minutes, then transfer to cooking racks to cool completely. Gather dough scraps, wrap in plastic and re-chill. Repeat rolling, cutting and baking with the remaining dough.
Icing
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Whisk powdered sugar with the cream (or milk) until you have a smooth icing that holds its shape when piped onto cookies. Add more powdered sugar or more milk to achieve desired consistency.
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To decorate the cookies, make sure they are cool, then use a pastry bag with a basic round writing tip or simply put the icing in a baggie and snip off a tiny corner of the bag so that the icing can flow out when you squeeze the bag.
Recipe Notes / Tips
- Dough disks like these keep great in the refrigerator for 3 – 5 days, and in the freezer for few months.
- The tastiest cookies will come from the first one or two rolls of your dough. If you gather and re-roll the scraps more than 2 or 3 times, your cookies will be tough. (If you are baking with children, hand over the scraps for some fragrant play dough!)
- Keep the icing simple so that sugar just compliments, doesn’t compete with the spiciness of the cookies.
- For added color and decoration, press cinnamon red hot candies into the dough before baking.These are great for coat and shoe buttons, eyes and holly leaf berries.
