Honey-Gingerbread Cookies

(54)
Yield:
Makes about 2 dozen town houses, 4 dozen deer or trees, or 6 dozen men

These gingerbread cookies include a generous amount of honey, which gives them a pale golden color and a mildly sweet flavor. If you are making the Gingerbread Town-Square Cake, you can use this template to trace and cut out the different townhouse shapes.

Ingredients

  • 5 ½ cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting

  • 1 teaspoon baking soda

  • 1 ½ teaspoons salt

  • 4 teaspoons ground ginger

  • 4 teaspoons ground cinnamon

  • 1 ½ teaspoons ground cloves

  • 1 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

  • 2 sticks (16 tablespoons) unsalted butter, room temperature

  • 1 cup granulated sugar

  • 2 large eggs

  • 1 cup honey

  • ½ cup unsulfured molasses

  • Royal Icing for Gingerbread Cookies

Directions

  1. Whisk together flour, baking soda, salt, and spices in a medium bowl.

  2. Beat butter and sugar with a mixer on medium-high speed until fluffy. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in honey and molasses. Reduce speed to low. Gradually add flour mixture, and beat until just combined. Divide dough into 3 portions, and wrap each in plastic. Refrigerate for 1 hour.

  3. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. On a generously floured piece of parchment, roll dough to a scant 1/4 inch thick. Brush off excess flour. Slide dough and parchment onto a baking sheet, and freeze for 15 minutes.

  4. Cut out desired shapes. Transfer to parchment-lined baking sheets, and freeze for 15 minutes.

  5. Bake cookies for 6 minutes. Remove sheets from oven, and tap them firmly on counter to flatten cookies. Return to oven, rotating sheets, and bake until crisp but not darkened, 6 to 8 minutes more. Let cool on sheets on wire racks.

  6. Spoon icing into a pastry bag fitted with a very small plain round tip (such as Ateco #0 or #1). Pipe designs on cookies. Let cookies stand at room temperature until set, at least 2 hours (preferably overnight).

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Cook's Notes

Cookies can be stored between layers of parchment in airtight containers for up to 1 week.

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