Easy Gingerbread Cookies

You guys know that while I love cooking, I’m not much of a baker. With an exception of few, tested family recipes, I usually stay away from baking desserts. This year, however, I really wanted to have a go at Christmas cookies. These gingerbread cookies were not only incredibly easy to make, but they also look pretty cute and taste amazing (mission accomplished!).

Ingredients (makes about 50 cookies):

     300g of wheat flour
100g of rye flour
100g of honey
1 TBS cocoa
1 tsp baking soda
2 eggs
130g confectioner sugar
100g butter, melted and slightly cooled
1TBS of gingerbread spice (recipe follows)

You can use preprepared, store-bought gingerbread spice, but it’s very easy to make your own. To make my gingerbread spice I simply mixed together the following spices:

• 1/2 cup cinnamon
• 1/2 cup ground ginger
• 1/4 cup allspice
• 1/4 cup nutmeg
• 1/4 cup ground cloves

You will end up with more than enough, but you can store it in your pantry so that next time you make gingerbread cookies, you won’t need to worry about preparing it.

Preheat the oven to 350F. To make your dough, mix all of the ingredients together. You can use a standing mixer or your hands. I personally prefer using my hands-the dough may become a bit sticky. Sprinkle some flour over the dough and a rolling pin and start rolling it until it’s about 1/4 inch thick. Cut out cookies using whatever cutter you wish; I went with Christmas tree and cute little gingerbread man cutters (I got them at Joann’s arts and craft store, but you can find them pretty much everywhere these days). Layer baking sheets with parchment paper, place cookies about an inch and a half apart from each other and bake for 8-9 minutes. Once your cookies are ready, place them on a cooling rack and let them completely cool off before decorating.

I’m not much of an artist, so I kept it simple with decorating my cookies. I used red icing to put little smiles on my gingerbread men (some of them ended up looking a bit creepy ha!) and pearlized white sugar for eyes and buttons. For my Christmas tree cookies I used white icing.

To make white icing, I sifted 1 cup of confectioners sugar and mixed it well with 1 egg white. I then used a spoon to cover my cookies with the icing and let them dry for a few minutes.

I actually doubled this recipe and ended up with 100 cookies. They taste amazing with a warm glass of milk ;) .