Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Gingerbread Snowflakes



Now that Christmas is approaching, I love holiday baking with fragrant spices. These gingerbread snowflakes are my favorite holiday cookies. I also give them as gifts every year since they look so lovely decorated with royal icing, white sanding sugar, and silver dragées.





Gingerbread Snowflake Recipe
{Adapted from Martha Stewart}

Cookies
6 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking soda
½ tsp. baking powder
1 cup unsalted butter
1 cup packed dark brown sugar
4 tsp. ground ginger
4 tsp. ground cinnamon
1½ tsp. ground cloves
¾ tsp. black pepper
1½ tsp. salt
2 large eggs
1 cup unsulfured molasses
Sanding sugar or dragées, for decoration

Royal Icing
4 cups confectioners’ sugar
Water

For the cookies, combine flour, baking soda, and baking powder in a bowl; set aside. In a separate bowl, cream butter and sugar until pale and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add spices, pepper, salt, eggs, and molasses. Mix until combined. Add flour mixture 2 cups at a time, mixing until each addition is incorporated. Wrap dough in plastic, and chill for 1 hour.

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Dust surface and rolling pin with flour. Roll dough to ¼ inch thick {so the cookies will stay chewy}. Cut with snowflake cutters, and place on ungreased baking sheet. Bake 8 minutes. Let cool completely.

For the royal icing, in a small bowl, mix confectioners’ sugar and water {about ¼-½ cup} with a spoon to reach desired consistency. Place in pastry bag with a small round tip or fill plastic bag and cut off corner. Pipe edges with thick icing to create a border. Then, add more water to the icing to fill in the center {it should be runny to create a smooth surface}. Sprinkle with sanding sugar or silver dragées. Voilà, cookies almost too good to eat, but you will.

5 comments:

  1. Finally the secrets are revealed

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  2. These are seriously some of the prettiest little Christmas cookies I have seen yet! I always get so tired when it comes time to decorate that my frosting gets a bit sloppy! Merry Christmas!

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  3. wow - these are gorgeous!! i'm not sure i could quite pull these off!

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  4. What a beautiful cookie! I love your photos too! Merry Christmas!!!

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  5. Wow! Those cookies are soooo beautiful Tiffany. You wish you can just grab them and eat them. I'm going to try and make them. Marcellus loves Gingerbread cookies.

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