Gingerbread Cookies

Cheap Eat Challenge Count Down: 14 days

I let my kids decorate our cut out cookies. I guess I figure that's what cut out cookies are for, right? Since as an adult, I would happily eat any old tasty circular blob. But maybe I am just mature. Anyway, our kids do our cut outs and as you can see from the picture above, they always come out a little... highly accessorized.

Oh, sure, I commandeered a few (by the way, I don't know how to spell commandeered).

But as you can see the kids' look just as tasty in their chocolate sprinkled gingerbread blob kind of way.

And they tasted really good too.

Other than that, our day was a bit of a train wreck.

So, without further ado...

Gingerbread Cookies

Adapted from The Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook

Makes 24-36

1/2 C butter

1/2 C sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp ginger
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp cloves
1/2 C molasses
1 egg
1 Tbsn vinegar
2 1/2 C flour, plus plenty for rolling and cutting.

Cream butter and sugar. Add bakind soda, baking powder, ginger, cinnamon, and cloves. Beat till combined. Beat in molasses, egg, and vinegar. Add flour. I beat in a cup and stirred in the rest.

Chill the dough at least an hour. Roll out to 1/4 inch thickness and cut. Accessorize if you wish. I'd either grease the cookie sheet lightly or place the cookies on a piece of parchment paper on your cookie sheet, since ours were a bit difficult to get off and then you lose gingerman arms and what not and that's never fun.

Bake at 375 for 6 minutes for a moist tender cookie (that's the way I like them, though they're more fragile that way. If you want a tougher, crispier cookie, bake 8-10 minutes).

If you like to frost yours, you can use royal frosting, but we don't like it so we use normal frosting even though it takes longer to set up and be non-goopy.

Here's the recipe I used:

Barely Lemon Gingerbread Cookie Frosting

1 1/2 C powdered sugar
1 Tbsp butter, melted
1 to 1 1/2 tsp lemon juice
3-4 Tbsp milk (to desired consistency--mine was fairly wet because I just wanted to sort of loosely dribble it on--or perhaps 'stream' is a better word)

Whisk or beat it all together. I put mine in a frosting thingy (train wreck day, remember), but you can spread or use fancy frosting thingy attachments.

PRINTABLE RECIPE
By the way, if you don't like gingerbread cookies (I'll cover my ears) or if you're just looking for a good sugar cookie recipe, check out this one from i am baker. I have to confess that one of the reasons we've always made gingerbread cookies is because I never had a sugar cookie recipe I really liked eating (dough excepted--I always liked eating the dough). I found that recipe from i am baker, and it was very good. I found myself actually tempted by the sugar cookies sitting on the counter, which I never had been before. I'm not sure that's a good thing. Because soon our family will look like this.

At least we're smiling.

Well, those of use who aren't pock-marked all over with chocolate chips.

(Uh-oh, that's the big one wearing a skirt--I think it's me.)