For these cookies, you’re going to need an egg yolk, butter, sugar, molasses, flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, cloves, ginger, and nutmeg.
Cream butter and sugar. Add molasses and egg yolk. In a medium bowl, combine remaining ingredients. Add flour mixture to butter mixture. Chill for at least an hour. It’s a fairly sticky dough so you might need to chill it a little longer.
Place the dough on a sheet of wax paper or plastic wrap
and then place another sheet on top.
roll dough to 1/4″ thick
and chill for 1 hour.
Preheat oven to 350. Remove the dough from the refrigerator and cut in desired shapes with cookie cutters.
Place cookies 2″ apart on a baking sheet. Bake 8-10 minutes. If you bake them on the short end they will stay soft and chewy and if you bake them on the longer end they will be nice and crispy. They’re great either way!
Allow to cool about 5 minutes on pan and then transfer to wire rack and cool completely. Once they’re cooled you can decorate your heart out. Glace icing would be fun on these little guys.
Print
Gingerbread Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 c. butter
- 1 c. sugar
- 1 c. molasses
- 2 egg yolks
- 4 c. flour
- 1 tsp. salt
- 1 tsp. baking powder
- 1 tsp. baking soda
- 1 tsp. cinnamon
- 1 tsp. cloves
- 1 tsp. ginger
- 1 tsp. nutmeg
Instructions
- Cream butter and sugar. Add molasses and egg yolk. In a medium bowl, combine remaining ingredients. Add flour mixture to butter mixture. Chill for at least an hour. It’s a fairly sticky dough so you might need to chill it a little longer.
- Preheat oven to 350. Roll dough to 1/4″ thick and cut with cookie cutters. Place cookies 2″ apart on a baking sheet. Bake 8-10 minutes. If you bake them on the short end they will stay soft and chewy and if you bake them on the longer end they will be nice and crispy. They’re great either way!
- Allow to cool about 5 minutes on pan and then transfer to wire rack and cool completely. Once they’re cooled you can decorate your heart out.
Questions & Reviews
love the recipe, my kids loved helping!! thanks, do you think this recipe would work for houses if i cooked them awhile longer for a harder cookie?
Tyler–If you like them softer, roll them no thinner than 1/4" and keep the baking on the short side of things. Also, be sure and chill the dough really well. To make life REALLY easy, when you've made your dough, lay a sheet of plastic wrap on your counter and lightly flour it. Roll the dough out onto the plastic wrap and then refrigerate it that way so you don't have to try and roll it when it's cold and hard.
Hope that helps! Good luck and let us know how they turn out! 🙂
Before I even got all the way through this post I went to amazon.com and ordered one of those beater blades! I use my Kitchen Aid all the time and HATE stopping to scrape the bowl. I am so glad to have found something to help…hooray!!
P.S. Cute gingerbread guys!
This is my first time making gingerbread cookies… any tips/tricks I need to know about before doing it? btw… I like them on the softer side 🙂 and am super excited to try this out
Aw, thanks, Jay! 🙂 And yes, they definitely freeze well. And good for Santa, telling you his favorite cookies. It's very important that Santa gets the cookies he wants on Christmas Eve… 🙂
Yes, me again… do you know if these freeze well?
Thanks, Kate for the super quick reply! One more way you are amazing!…One more thing, I was just looking at the chewy choc chip cookie recipe and am truly intrigued. I think I might have to try these, especially since Santa told my son that his fav is Choc chip!
Crazy Jay–I've never tried doubling, but I imagine it would double really well.
Do you know if the recipe doubles nicely?
lol @ Dave's comment. xD
My kids and I love making gingerbread cookies before Christmas! They love it!
cabin design
I made these today with my daycare kids and they were a huge hit. The spices were just right.
Sad Gingerbread Man recognizes his fate is unavoidable.
That's hilarious.
I love the smell of gingerbread! Our tree this year is very old fashioned with popcorn and cranberry garland with gingerbread men for ornaments. My house always smells so yummy!
The cookies look so good. Can't wait to try them out. I sure hope you get out of your funk soon. Seems like when one thing goes wrong everything does.
don't eat all of them yourself. LOL
Hugs
Pam
Aw man! I was searching your website yesterday or a gingerbread recipe and finally just tried some random one I found somewhere else that looked easy…I wish I would have waited one day! 🙂
I'll add these to my Christmas cookies list and I HATE that black hole in the bottom of my mixer! That blade looks pretty sweet!
Love the frowny gingerbread man! Hope you get out of your funk! We just made gingerbread men, it was fun, my kiddos had a blast!
A few years ago I wanted to make gingerbread – but I couldn't afford the allspice or whatever needed to go in the recipe I found. I picked up a roll of pillsbury gingerbread – never again! It was terrible and turned me off to gingerbread totally. I think I might be ready to jump back on the horse though – your little guys look SOOO yummy!
PS LOVE THE BEATER BLADE! Wish I had a standing mixer to put it in!
Aw I'm so sorry that you're having a bad few days before christmas. But really try to enjoy the season – it only comes around once a year! These things happen, but everything is going to be alright.
Can completely relate with the funk (except sinusitis has been going on for 6 wks–just can't shake it). Hope the gingerbread cookies helped your funk…they put a smile on my face.
These are just so perfectly cute!
I love making gingerbread cookies at this time of year. Although, I also have to say it's been hard to get in the Christmas Spirit for me this year too, but I'm tryin! Thanks so much for the beater blade advertisement! I was looking for something to give my sister-in-law this year. I knew she had a Kitchen-Aid so this was perfect! I ordered one from Amazon as soon as I read your post. LOL!
I LOVE the beater blade! I got it for Christmas two years ago and I don't ever use the regular paddle attachment anymore. It's totally worth the money.
Jeni, I totally would except that I found the cat asleep on them this morning. "That darn cat" are not exactly the words I'm thinking of right now.
Aaron and I were just discussing how neither of us like gingerbread. But we also realized that neither of us had had homemade gingerbread, so we couldn't completely rule it out yet. And Viola! You post a recipe. Maybe you could bring us a sample:)
I was planning on making gingerbread men tonight! What great timing. Love the little frowny face guy – that's kind of how I feel right now too.
The Beater Blade looks interesting. I'm too cheap to spend $25 on it, when I think my standard one works pretty good.
I love my beater blade, however I read recently in Cooks Illustrated that Kitchenaid will void an warranties that you have on you mixer if you use it. I guess the friction that the blade causes on the sides of the bowl can strain the motor. That being said, I still use mine and haven't had any problems.
any comments on the beaterblade? some of the reviewers on amazon.com are disappointed because the blade is plastic instead of die-cast. the blade has a 1 year warranty but it's too soon to tell whether that will be needed.
So delighted you just posted this gingerbread man recipe…
it is JUST what I need!
XXOOXX
Hugs and Thanks!