Description
These soft and chewy gingerbread cookies hold their shape in the oven, are packed with warm spices, and are perfect for decorating with royal icing or your favorite frosting.
Ingredients
Units
- 3 cups flour
- 3/4 cup dark brown sugar
- 3/4 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 tbsp ground cinnamon
- 1 tbsp ground ginger
- 1/2 tsp ground cloves
- 1 1/2 sticks butter, cut into tablespoon squares and slightly softened, but not room temperature
- 3/4 cup molasses
- 2 tbsp milk
Instructions
- Mix flour, dark brown sugar, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, and cloves until well combined.
- In a separate bowl, mix molasses and milk until evenly combined. A little whisking will help.
- Drop your butter into the flour mixture and stir them around until they are coated with the dry ingredients. Then, with a pastry blender, fork, or your hands, cut the butter into the flour mixture. You want a fine meal. If you’ve made pie dough from scratch before, you’re looking for the similar consistency.
- Slowly incorporate the molasses mixture into the dry ingredients. Add a 1/4 cup at a time until you get soft cookie dough.
- Ball up the dough and cut it in half.
- Place one half of the dough between two sheets of plastic wrap and roll it out so it’s a 14-inch thick. Place that on a cookie sheet and repeat this step with the other half of dough. Stack the other dough on top of the other cookie sheet.
- Place the cookie sheet in the fridge for at least 2 hours, overnight or until the dough is firm.
- Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F and line cookie sheets with parchment paper.
- Remove one of your firm, rolled dough from the fridge.
- Remove one layer of plastic wrap and then cover it back up. This will prevent sticking when cutting.
- Flip over and remove the other layer of plastic wrap completely. You should still have one layer of plastic wrap on the bottom.
- Cut out your cookies and place them on the cookie sheet.
- If you’re into it, gather your scrap dough and roll out new shapes. Place them in the fridge to firm up.
- Bake the cookies for 8 minutes (longer for larger cookies).
- They won’t be firm when they come out of the oven. Leave them on the cookie rack to continue cooking. Let them cool for 5-10 minutes and move to a cookie rack to cool completely.
- Repeat steps 9-15 with the other firm dough/dough scraps.
- Decorate your cookies when they are fully cool!