Now I’m not a gingerbread expert. So I can’t claim this is “the best gingerbread recipe”… My goal was to find one that is simple (ingredients and measurements), and allows the kids to get involved. When I read this recipe from Babes in Disneyland I knew we had to try it out… with a few adjustments and experiments thrown in.

Reasons I ended up loving this gingerbread cookie recipe…

1. taste/spiciness was great.
2. measurements were simple and process for making the dough is straightforward
3. dough was easy to work with, easy to roll out, and not at all fragile or crumbly
4. the cookies looked beautiful when they came out of the oven, puffed up nicely
5. if you like a moist, thick and chewy gingerbread man this is a good one!

I was pretty determined to make these gingerbread cookies and I had lots of ideas I wanted to try with the kids cooking. But life has been pretty hectic so the timeline of this project ended up being…

SUNDAY NIGHT

Me making the dough on my own once the kids were in bed (I stuck it in the fridge to chill). No pictures taken.

MONDAY

Me and the kids doing a set of round gingerbread cookies on Monday with sprinkle decorations… These are some cookie making activities that worked well with my kids.

SPRINKLE COLOR SORTING

My kids really enjoyed sorting the colors! This is a great little activity to prep for decorating.

CHOP THE LOG

I chilled one batch of dough into a log instead of a round and flat shape, so we could chop off circles to bake without rolling. This worked really well but the end result wasn’t as “pretty” as the rolled and cut cookies – the tops were bumpy and not polished looking. But if you are just wanting an easy way to do gingerbread without fussing with rolling and cookie cutters, they tasted great and were easy to do.

SMUSH IN SPRINKLES

For this batch we smushed in sprinkles before baking, and then baked them in. Most of these decorations melted in the oven. Not the prettiest results but they tasted and smelled amazing!

The finished baked results 🙂

TUESDAY EVENING

Tuesday evening right before bedtime we rolled out the other half of the dough to make the cut out men, it was dark so we didn’t have any beautiful natural light for photos – it’s amazing to me how much the lighting affects the quality of photos!

SATURDAY

I kept the cookies and saved them until Saturday when we were finally able to attempt decorating.

That’s the deceptive thing about blogs – you can sit and read through this post in about 5 minutes but actually doing all the baking projects is another story! Don’t get overwhelmed. So my recommendation is – split up the work into short segments over a few days, and pick and choose which parts you want the kids involved with.

This was an awesome hack as well – using a condiment bottle or glue bottle to do the icing! This made it so easy for the kids to do the frosting without fussing with a piping bag or ziploc bag, there was no unnecessary mess, and it looked great too coming out in nice thin lines. Definitely going to be using this idea again in the future!

Print

Soft, Chewy Gingerbread

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup unsalted butter
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup dark molasses
• 3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1/2 tsp. ground cloves
• 1 tsp. ground cinnamon
• 3 tsp. ground ginger
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1/4 tsp. ground cardamom
• 1/2 cup water

Icing

• 2 cups powdered sugar
• 4 Tbsp milk
• 1 tsp vanilla

Instructions

1. In a large mixing bowl cream butter and brown sugar.

2. Add dark molasses. Mix until completely blended.

3. Mix dry ingredients together. Add to butter mixture 1/3 at a time, alternating with the water.

4. Blend well. Wrap dough in plastic wrap. Chill in the fridge for at least an hour before rolling or baking.

5. When you're ready to bake, preheat oven to 350F. Grease cookie sheets. Use lots of flour while rolling out dough on a generously floured surface 1/8 to 1/4 inch thick.

6. Cut into shapes. Bake for 8-10 minutes. Cool completely before decorating.

Icing

1. Mix together sugar, milk and vanilla to form a smooth icing. It should be thick but pourable. Add more milk if needed so that it flows. Pour into a condiment bottle, hand to your kids and let them go to town with the icing! Add candy or sprinkles on top if desired.

Recipe Notes

Recipe credit to Disney at Home's Disneyland Gingerbread Recipe

Icing credit (and brilliant frosting hack) to The Kitchn's Gingerbread Cookies recipe