I made these gingerbread cookies so that, (a) my house would smell amazing, and (b) three grown-up humans could sit around the table and laugh at each other and have fun icing Christmas cookies.
Don’t let the fact that you aren’t ready to be the make-my-own-icing, own-all-the-food-dye person hold you back here. Clearly I did not, and I don’t regret it.
This recipe was inspired by an old Christmas episode of Nigella Bites, in which the domestic goddess herself is explaining how she gets into the festive mood. Apparently she makes these edible snowflake ornament cookies every year. I love this idea so much, but can’t bring myself to put cookies on our tree here in the land of the sugar ant. So. I made some ornaments, and dangled them for a while, and enjoyed them. Then they lived in a cookie tin until they were eaten.
I wanted to make a string of christmas lights, but my homemade light stencil was gently critiqued by all. I still think it looks like a lightbulb. Right? You can see it.
The gingery dough is easy to make, easy to work with, and really good when eaten raw. Ahem.
It also bakes up into cookies very nicely, with no shrinkage, allowing for fidelity of shape and easy decorating. The cookies themselves are peppery and kissed with honey and cardamom. They are also sturdy enough to be iced by your local herd of artistic but graceless elephants/family and friends/gaggles of small humans.
- 300g plain flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon black pepper
- 1 teaspoon ground cardamom
- 1 teaspoon ground ginger
- 100 g salted butter, cubed
- 100 g dark brown sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 3 tablespoons of honey
- Combine flour, baking powder, and spices in the bowl of a food processor. Pulse to combine.
- Add butter and sugar and pulse until mixture is a sandy texture.
- Add eggs and honey, and pulse just until a dough begins to come together.
- Turn the dough/floury crumbles onto a clean surface and knead everything together with your hands.
- Divide the dough into two discs and wrap each with plastic wrap. Place them both in the freezer while you preheat the oven to 350F/170C. Also, take this time to line a baking sheet with parchment and wipe down your countertop.
- Dust your clean countertop with flour. Take one disc out of the freezer and roll it out to about 5mm thickness. Cut your cookies with holiday cookie cutter shapes, or make your own pattern and trace around it with a knife.
- Gently lift the cut-outs onto the baking sheet and bake for 10 mins. Remove to a wire rack to cool.
- Remove the other disc from the fridge and repeat the process before you use the scraps from the first round, then do a third round with scraps from both.
- Ice with your favorite supermarket offerings. Go to town. Let your inner Jackson Pollock free.