Friday, June 26, 2009

Gingerbread Cookies

My nephew came over yesterday all excited to make gingerbread cookies. He had his own recipe from a book, but that required a 2 hour wait for the dough in the refrigerator. I quickly checked online to find an easier recipe.

And came across one of the most lovely blogs I have seen. Exclusively Food, a blog by Amanda and Debbie, has great recipes and beautiful photographs. Their gingerbread people are incredibly cute, and thankfully my nephew loved them too.

So armed with their recipe, I had 3 kids making gingerbread cookies. They came out absolutely delicious! We didn't quite get to make people as I don't have great cookie cutters, but we made several different shapes. Our artistic talents were also slightly lacking. And most of the cookies were eaten before we could even get to the icing stage!


Gingerbread Cookies
(adapted from Exclusively Food)

2 1/2 cups All-Purpose Flour
140 g Butter, softened
1/2 cup Brown Sugar
1 large Egg, divided into yolk and white
1 tsp Cinnamon Powder
1 tsp Nutmeg Powder
3 tsp Ginger (I used ginger paste)
1 tsp Baking Soda
1/2 cup Golden Syrup

Stir together in a bowl, the flour, baking soda and spices.

In another large bowl, cream the butter and brown sugar together. Add the egg yolk and golden syrup and beat together until combined. Slowly add in the flour mixture until just combined.

Preheat oven to 180 deg C. And line a baking sheet with baking paper.

Divide the dough into halves. Roll out one half between two sheets of baking paper or parchment paper. Transfer to the freezer. Repeat for the other half. Let the dough freeze for about 15-20 minutes. This is essential - its really difficult to work with the soft dough before freezing.

Remove from the freezer and cut desired shapes. Transfer to the baking sheet carefully and bake for 10 minutes until firm. Let cool for 5 minutes and transfer to a wire rack.


While the cookies are baking, whisk together the icing:

Icing

1 1/3 cup Icing Sugar
1 Egg White (the one you saved from the yolk above)

Combine very well until a pale white. Add food coloring if you'd like. Decorate the cookies (I used Ziploc bags with a tiny bit of the edge cut off to pipe the icing onto the cookies) after they have cooled a bit from the oven. And let the icing set completely (of course, we didn't wait at all!).

They were fantastic. Thanks so much for a keeper recipe!!

8 comments:

chef and her kitchen said...

Loved the different shapes of those cookies..Its fun to decorate those goodies right??

Parita said...

Oh the cookies surely looks cute and adorable!

Priya Suresh said...

Cookies looks cute and love the shape of each and every cookies!

Sumi said...

Very nice way to indulge the kids.They should have been awfully proud to see their baked goodies

Bindiya said...

So sweet and they look yummy too!

Arundathi said...


Thanks everyone - we had lots of fun making them

Anonymous said...

cute! this is like the perfect summer project for kids! "make-your own-cookies" camp!
im guessing the ginger paste can be subsituted with ginger powder?and wats golden syrup??since u are raving so much about these, i really want to try them out..

Arundathi said...


Hi dear - Yes of course, ginger powder would've been idea - but I didn't have any, so used ground ginger instead.
And hmm... golden syrup is sorta kinda like a mix of honey and maple syrup - you can find it in most stores (I bought it in Amma Naana). Or the recipe suggests treacle or molasses - if you have those.
Hope that helps. Do try it - its delicious!