Kav's Gingerbread Cookies

Missy, here. And I'm thrilled to share a post today from Kav. Y'all give her a big Yankee-Belle welcome!

Soft Gingerbread Cookies

Kav Rees

So, I posted a picture of my biggest Christmas kitchen triumph on Facebook and Missy asked me to share it here. But first I thought I’d give you a gander at my wee little house that’s falling apart.

Luckily you can’t notice all its flaws in this picture thanks to my garden. That’s at the early stages. Blissful sigh. I love my garden. Now it’s just piles of snow.

And here’s my tiny little kitchen complete with floor tile counters! Talk about step-saving design. I didn’t have to move an inch in order to access everything I needed to create today’s confection…

 Drum roll please….soft and chewy gingerbread cookies. I know, y’all are probably rolling your eyes at the simplicity of it all. Who can’t make gingerbread? Me for one! No matter what recipe I tried it always came out way too crispy. In fact, some of my attempts could have been used for hockey pucks. Even my dogs wouldn’t risk their canines on them! So when my daughter requested gingerbread cookies for part of our Christmas baking line up I cringed and promptly made her research a recipe so I could blame her for the epic fail sure to come. Only sweet success!!!!!!

 Soft Not Snappish Gingerbread Cookies

Butter (1/2 cup)

Dark Brown Sugar (3/4 cup)

Molasses (1/3 cup)

Egg (1)

Flour (2& 2/3 cup)

Ground Ginger (2 tsp)

Baking Soda (1 tsp)

Salt (1/2 tsp)

Ground cinnamon (1/2 tsp)

Nutmeg (1/2 tsp)

Alspice (1/2 tsp)

Ignore the white sugar. It snuck in there when I wasn’t looking. Such a ham!

I didn’t take pictures of the process but you cream butter and sugar really well. Add in molasses and egg. Mix the dry ingredients separately and then mix gradually with the butter/molasses mixture. You’ll have to use your hands when you add the last of the flour mixture and then knead the dough for bit. It feels really dry at first, but keep at it and pretty soon you’ll have a nice smooth ball of gingerbread dough.

Divide into two balls and refrigerate for at least half an hour.

(Funny side note here. My daughter copied this recipe down and she’s notorious for leaving things out. This time it looks like she left out a water measurement in the ingredient list because as I was copying out the directions I noticed it said to add water. LOL. Oops, no idea how much, but I’ve made it twice now and haven’t missed the water. Wondering if that’s what makes these so soft and chewy instead of crisp? Who knows?)

On a lightly floured surface roll out dough – I left it thicker than I would for sugar cookies because I like my gingerbread soft not snappish. Cut out cookies, place 2 inches apart on a greased baking sheet (or just use parchment paper which is what I do). Bake at 350 for 8-10 minutes. I undercook mine…so first couple of batches are 8 minutes but later ones are about 7 minutes because I’m all about the chew in my gingerbread.

I’m actually going to freeze these sweeties and decorate them closer to Valentine’s Day so the decorated pic at the top of this post is a picture of our Christmas cookies – decorated with a zip lock bag that had a hole cut out of a corner. Hoping to get a proper decorating set before I make these pretties into Valentine treats. I’ll pipe around them and add love scripture references in the centre. I used to do that when I taught Sunday School and made the students read the scripture before they could eat the cookie. Devious, eh?

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Kav is a mystery – even to herself which maybe explains why she is so fond of romantic suspense.  After a lifetime of writing as a leisure pursuit, she is now setting her sights towards publication.

A passionate reader of inspirational fiction, Kav devours books and then blogs about them on her review blog http://www.bestreads-kav.blogspot.ca where she is fond of hosting giveaways as well. She is also part of a ten woman blogging team over at http://inkspirationalmessages.com/  

You can also find Kav on Facebook.