Gingerbread Kid Cookies

 

Ingredients

• 3 cups flour
• 2 teaspoons ground ginger
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon  
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) butter, softened
• 3/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
• 1/2 cup molasses
• 1 egg
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Directions

• Cream the butter and sugar until smooth. 
• Add the molasses and continue to blend. 
• Mix in egg and vanilla until well incorporated. 
• Blend in spices, baking soda and salt.
• Once it's completely mixed, slowly start adding flour, one cup at a time.

Transfer dough to plastic wrap in order to chill overnight. Shape it into a flattened ball. You'll be rolling it out, so give yourself a head start by having it be flat. 

When you are ready to bake:

Preheat oven to 350*F

Roll the dough to 1/8-1/4 inch thickness. thicker if you are using larger cookie cutters. For my 2 inch gingerbread kids, I like thinner dough, closer to 1/8 inch thick. The thicker they are, the softer the finished cookie will be. 

Place cookies about an inch apart on parchment paper lined cookie sheet. They do puff up a bit. 

Bake 8-10 minutes, just until the edges start to brown. 

Pull the parchment paper onto the counter to cool cookies quicker. 

Store cookies in a closed container after completely cooled.

Decorate with royal icing, if desired. 

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• Getting ready to decorate with Royal Icing.

I use paste food coloring, starting with green. 

Sprinkling of green sugar for the scarves.

After allowing the green to set up and dry for a bit, 

I added the white icing. 

I sprinkled red sugar for the dresses. 

I will allow them all to rest on the kitchen counter 

for the day to set up solid before packaging. 

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