I know I usually do healthyish recipes here, but it’s christmas, which equals one free pass to eat your body weight in cookies/mince pies/whatever floats your boat. It’s all about balance right!
I never used to be a gingerbread person, I was all about the mince pies come christmas time. Despite making gingerbread pretty much every christmas, I always stuck to decorating them, kindly letting others do the eating. But last year I found these cute santa and rudolph cookie cutters in the discount section of tkmaxx. Obviously I had to immediately make cookies with them and found iamafoodblog’s recipe for gingerbread cookies and for the first time I realised that gingerbread cookies were actually yummm! I usually find gingerbread too crunchy. But these are the perfect balance between slightly soft while still being crunchy…even if you manage to burn them slightly like I did my first batch! I adapted the recipe slightly with my preferred spice and molasses mix, as I am always more heavy handed when adding spices. Just try to take them out as soon as they start to go brown so they stay the perfect softness. Though I almost recommend ruining the first batch as they make a great snack while decorating the second!
I like to compete with myself and try to up my gingerbread game each year. Last year the cutters did most of the work for me, so I had a high bar to follow. With too much inspiration filling up my feed I think I fell down the decorating rabbit hole when deciding to pipe ombre buttercream iced trees. Of course like many things they took longer than expected, but it was still soo satisfying. I may have to transition to professional gingerbread decorator, if that’s a thing. But if you can think of better ways to spend a friday night, then I recommend skipping the ombre part and just using one colour throughout. This way is actually pretty easy to do. This was the first time I piped buttercream anything, so it is novice friendly. Or decorate however you want!
Gingerbread Cookies with Ombre Buttercream Icing
Makes 20 cookies
recipe adapted from iamafoodblog
2 cups flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1 tsp ginger
1 tsp mixed spice
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup sugar
4 tbsp golden syrup
2 tbsp black treacle
1 egg yolk
buttercream
1/3 cup butter
1 cups icing sugar
food colouring
Sift the dry ingredients into a bowl. Cream the butter, sugar and molasses together until light and fluffy. Beat in egg yolk. Mix in the dry ingredients until it forms a dough. If it is a little dry add a little water. Wrap with plastic wrap and chill in fridge for at minimum 30mins.
When ready to bake, preheat the oven to 180C. Roll out the dough to ½ cm thick. Cut with cookie cutters and place on baking sheet lined with baking paper. Recombine the scraps, repeat and cut into more shapes. Bake for 7mins until they are just about starting to turn brown. Let cool completely before icing.
Icing: In a mixer, beat the butter and icing sugar together until smooth. Divide the icing into bowls and add desired food colour to each. To make the green add 3 drops of green colour and one drop of black, adjust as needed. Add to piping bags fitted with a star tip and ice small dots all over the trees.
