Baking in December

Have been wanting to bake gingerbread man cookies for the longest time. Since we have entered into December and it's Christmas month, I have the best reason to bake them!

Most of the recipes found online contain molasses which add on the fragrance of the cookies. However, I do not have that and do not intend to buy, so I searched for recipe without it and found this recipe from MelanieCooks. This recipe is very easy.



Recipe adapted from MelanieCooks with some minor adjustment.

Ingredients:
3 cups all purpose flour
4 tsp ground ginger
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground mixed spices
1 tsp baking soda
340g salted butter, room temperature
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1/4 cup honey
1 large egg
1 tsp vanilla extract

Steps:

1) In a bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, ground ginger, ground cinnamon and ground mixed spices.

2) In an electric mixer, beat the butter until smooth and creamy.

3) Add in light brown sugar until well combined.

4) Add in honey, egg and vanilla extract.

5) Add half of the dry ingredients to the mixture and beat until incorporated and then add the remaining.

6) Scrape dough onto parchment paper. By using a rolling pin, roll the dough 1/4-inch thick and wrap around. Freeze the dough until firm for 20 minutes or refrigerate for 2 hours or overnight.

7) Preheat oven to 180dC.

8) Line baking tray with parchment paper.

9) Remove dough from freezer or refrigerator and place on work surface. Peel off the parchment paper and lay it back in place. 

10) Fun part!!! Cut the dough using ginger bread man cookie cutter (of course any cookie cutter is fine). 

11) Transfer shapes to the prepared baking tray. Optional: By using a toothpick, draw the eyes and mouth.

12) Bake for 15 minutes.

13) Cool completely on wire rack.

14) Gather scrapes and repeat rolling, cutting and baking. Repeat with remaining dough until all dough is used up.

15) Optional: Once cookies are cool, decorate with icing sugar, if desired.

The happy gingerbread man!

Tada! Can't wait to bake this again with baby rainbow next year!