Classic old-fashioned gingerbread cookies. Bust out your cookie cutter and make this classic Christmas treat! You can cut them into gingerbread men or use any other fun shape.
You can’t catch me, I’m the gingerbread man! Children love making gingerbread men at Christmas time. They are cute, tasty, and fun to decorate. It’s a craft and a dessert all mixed in one! It makes for a fun afternoon activity for the kids. These cookies are soft and flavorful, but still hold their shape enough to be perfect for decorating.
Why do I need to chill Old Fashioned Gingerbread Cookie Dough?
Chilling your dough will re-solidify the fat in the recipe and make your dough much easier to work with. Chilling the dough is an important step to take so that it can be easily rolled out and cut into shapes.
What kind of icing should I use for decorating?
You can use store bought decorators icing for decorating gingerbread cookies which is sold in tubes or pouches. Another option is to make your own homemade royal icing and dye it the colors you’d like. You want to make sure that you are using an icing, not a frosting as they are two different things. Detailed decorating is best done with icing. Be careful when working with icing as it does dry fairly quickly.
Molasses Substitute
Molasses, also known as dark treacle, is a dark, syrup-like liquid that is a byproduct of refining sugar cane. Don’t have molasses? A molasses substitute can be made using 1 to 1 ratio of honey and brown sugar, or a 1 to 1 ratio of dark corn syrup and maple syrup. This recipe calls for 1/3 cup molasses. For a molasses substitute you could use 5 tablespoons honey + 5 tablespoons brown sugar, or you could use 5 tablespoons dark corn syrup + 5 tablespoons maple syrup.
Storage Instructions:
Store your cookies in an airtight container for up to 5 days. Left much beyond that, and they will stale.
If you like this recipe, you may be interested in these other delicious Christmas recipes:
Watch the video below where Rachel will walk you through every step of this recipe. Sometimes it helps to have a visual, and we’ve always got you covered with our cooking show. You can find the complete collection of recipes on YouTube, Facebook Watch, or our Facebook Page, or right here on our website with their corresponding recipes.
I Love this recipe I was looking for a great soft recipe to make when Christmas is over. They taste like Little Debbie’s but better. Closes that I could get to taste similar to those cookies my family and I love these.
Perfect combination. Great turn out
The cookies were yummy and I recommend this recipe, but refrigerating the dough as in your instructions is not long enough.,The recipe says to Refrigerate the dough for one hour before rolling out. The dough was too sticky and the cookies were breaking apart when removing from cookie cutters onto the cookie sheets did not so easy to work with .
I read several another Gingerbread recipes and they all said to refrigerate dough minimum of 3-4 hours or overnight. Also your video says to make dough into a ball, where as the other recipes say a disk, this helps it get colder faster, than making a ball. So we made the dough into a disk and put back in the refrigerator for 4 hours and the dough was no longer sticky, nor did it break apart when cutting with cookie cutters. We even saved a small amount of the dough and the next day the dough was still perfect after being in the refrigerator overnight. Look forward to making again!
These are much softer than my usual recipe. I like them so much better. I have a pop-up from you every morning, I start my morning with you. You have such a cheerful, sincere manner. You make me smile while I enjoy my coffee.
Thank you for giving me your recipe! i have made it and my whole family loves it! even my 5 years old keep having some more! lovely! inwould recommend it to people!
Where would I buy Royal icing packs or do I make royal icing myself
Royal icing packets are available at most grocery stores or you can make royal icing at home using the links included above.
My great grand nephew asked me to make these for him today. This will be my first attempt. May I use regular butter? Plugra is no where to be found unless I go beyond 50 miles. Thank you for your great recipe.
Yes, regular butter will be fine.
Today I found a Land O’ Lakes European version 82% butterfat. Problem solved. Now need to learn how to make royal icing and decorate. Thanks for your help.
Looks delicious. Is there any substitute for the butter? My son is allergic to cow dairy. Would Goat butter work? Or coconut butter or oil?
I am not familiar with goat butter and have not tested anything but butter. If you test it, let me know how it works out!
This video was the best!! Making this recipe tonight.