Homemade Gingerbread Cookies

Homemade gingerbread cookies are so warm and comforting in the long winter months.

They can be chewy or crunchy and have such a pleasing sweet and spicy taste.

Use your favorite cookie cutters to make fun shapes and use your favorite icing to decorate!

Making Homemade Gingerbread Cookies

Start by adding the flour to a medium mixing bowl.

Add the cinnamon, ginger, cloves, salt, and baking soda to the flour and mix well.

In a stand mixer, add the butter and the brown sugar. Mix on low until well blended.

Add the molasses, vanilla, and egg yolk and continue to mix on low until smooth.

Slowly add the flour mixture (half at a time) and mix on low until the flour is well mixed then add the milk.

Mix until a crumbly dough starts to form. The dough will become very dense so you’ll need to knead it by hand once the dough starts to form as shown in the photo below.

When the dough is crumbly, remove it from the stand mixer and place it on a lightly floured surface.

Continue to knead by hand until a soft dough forms.

Cut the dough into two equal pieces and wrap each piece in a beeswax wrap. Chill for 2 hours.

Preheat the oven to 350°F

Roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface to your desired thickness or roughly 1/4 inch.

Use cookie cutters to shape the cookies and place the cookies on a cast iron stone or lightly greased baking sheet.

Re-knead the remaining dough and roll back into your desired thickness until all the dough has been shaped.

Bake for 8 minutes or until the edges are crispy and the middle is soft.
Remove from the oven and let the cookies rest on the baking sheet for 5 minutes, then remove to a cooking rack. This allows the cookies to finish cooking and keeps them moist.

In my video, I used a cast iron pizza stone and a regular baking sheet to make these cookies and the results were so different!

Check out my video below to see the results.

Storing the gingerbread cookies

If you decide to bake a half batch you can leave the second batch in the fridge for up to two days. The flavor will continue to develop so you will end up with a stronger ginger flavor by letting them chill longer.

Store the baked cookies in a sealed glass container. They will stay fresh for a week.

Homemade Gingerbread Cookies

Recipe by Whitney – Willowbottom
Prep time

30

minutes
Cooking time

8

minutes
Total time

2

hours 

43

minutes

Ingredients

  • 2 1/4 cups AP Flour

  • 2 tsp Cinnamon

  • 2 tsp Ginger

  • 1/2 tsp Salt

  • 1/4 tsp Ground Cloves

  • 1 tsp Baking Soda

  • 1 stick (1/2 cup) Unsalted Butter – room temperature

  • 2/3 cup Brown Sugar

  • 1/3 cup Unsulphured Molasses

  • 1 Egg yolk

  • 1 tsp Vanilla

  • 1 Tbsp Milk

Directions

  • Start by adding the flour to a medium mixing bowl.
  • Add the cinnamon, ginger, cloves, salt, and baking soda to the flour and mix well.
  • In a stand mixer, add the butter and the brown sugar. Mix on low until well blended.
  • Add the molasses, vanilla, and egg yolk and continue to mix on low until smooth.
  • Slowly add the flour mixture (half at a time) and mix on low until the flour is well mixed then add the milk.
  • Mix until a crumbly dough starts to form.
  • When the dough is crumbly, remove it from the stand mixer and place it on a lightly floured surface.
  • Continue to knead by hand until a soft dough forms.
  • Cut the dough into two equal pieces and wrap each piece in a beeswax wrap. Chill for 2 hours.
  • Preheat the oven to 350°F
  • Roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface to your desired thickness or roughly 1/4 inch.
  • Use cookie cutters to shape the cookies and place the cookies on a cast iron stone or lightly greased baking sheet.
  • Re-knead the remaining dough and roll back into your desired thickness until all the dough has been shaped.
  • Bake for 8 minutes or until the edges are crispy and the middle is soft.
    Remove from the oven and let the cookies rest on the baking sheet for 5 minutes, then remove to a cooking rack. This allows the cookies to finish cooking and keeps them moist.
  • Enjoy!

Recipe Video

Did you make this recipe?

Tag @willowbottom_homestead on Instagram and use hashtag #willowbottom

Whitney Stokes

Whitney is a naturalist who started Willowbottom.com in 2018 to encourage natural and sustainable living.

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