Gingerbread Cutout Cookies

Gingerbread Cutout Cookies

Cookies.

• • 1 1/4 cups (2 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened to room temperature (but still cool to the touch)

  • 1 cup dark brown sugar

  • 1 cup granulated white sugar

  • 2 large eggs, cold

  • 2 teaspoons vanilla

  • 1/3 cup molasses

  • 1/3 cup dark corn syrup

  • 6 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

  • 1 teaspoon baking soda

  • 1 teaspoon coarse Kosher salt

  • 1 teaspoon ground ginger

  • 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

  • 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

  • 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

Icing.

• • 3 cups powdered sugar

  • 1 tablespoon meringue powder

  • 1 teaspoon vanilla

  • 5-6 tablespoons lemon juice

Cookies.

Preheat the oven to 350.

In the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter, brown sugar and white sugar on medium low speed, just to combine, for about one minute. Don't beat for longer, since you don't want to incorporate air into the batter. Add the eggs and vanilla and beat briefly, just to combine. Scrape the bowl down and mix in the molasses and corn syrup.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt and spices. With the mixer on low, add the dry ingredients and mix just enough to combine. If the dough gets too thick for the mixer to finish incorporating the dry ingredients, dump the dough out on a clean work surface and finish kneading the dough using your hands, working in all the dry ingredients until you have a soft dough.

Divide the dough in half. Lightly flour your work surface and roll out half the dough to 1/2 inch thick. Cut out your cookies, dipping the cookie cutters in flour as needed, and place the cookies two inches apart on a parchment lined baking sheet. Gather up the scraps and re-roll, cutting as many cookies as you can. Roll and cut the other half of the dough.

Place your baking sheet in the refrigerator to chill the cut cookies for 15 minutes before baking.

Bake for 8 minutes for small cookies and 10 minutes for large cookies. Let sit on the baking sheet for several minutes, then carefully transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Icing.

In a large bowl, whisk together all the ingredients until very smooth. The icing should be a thick, drizzling consistency, that when drizzled back into the bowl, disappears into the icing within a few seconds. Gradually add a little more lemon juice, 1 teaspoon at a time, to reach the right consistency.

Scrape the icing into a piping bag fitted with a small round tip and outline and fill your cookies. The glaze will begin to set quickly, but you should let the cookies sit out and dry for several hours before storing in an airtight container.

Recipe from Curly Girl Kitchen