hey i'm john cannell and today on preppy
kitchen we're making gingerbread cookies
so let's get started to make these
amazing cookies you'll need brown sugar
butter 1 egg cinnamon ginger nutmeg and
cloves vanilla molasses salt baking soda
and flour first off we're combining all
the dry ingredients starting with three
cups or 360 grams of all-purpose flour
one teaspoon of baking soda in you go
now it's time for all those amazing
spices
one teaspoon of cinnamon
what would gingerbread cookies be
without the ginger two teaspoons of
ground ginger
in you go it gives the cookies a nice
bite one quarter teaspoon of nutmeg and
i love to use the rasp and just get that
nice and fresh it smells so good
last up
a conservative quarter teaspoon of
cloves or it really smells like the
holidays
one quarter teaspoon of salt and you go
just shake that out you don't have to
use the sifter it's totally fine i just
like to do it in case there's any giant
piece of a spice hanging out it would be
like a big mouthful grab a whisk whisk
whisk whisk whisk and we're gonna set
this aside and grab a mixer out you
could use a hand mixer i'm using my
stand mixer with the paddle attachment
i'm adding three quarters of a cup or
170 grams of unsalted room temperature
butter i'm gonna cream this up just
really quickly i want to make sure it's
nice and soft
you know that when we're baking on a
cold winter's day that countertop just
sucks the heat out of everything so it's
always a good idea just to give that
butter a quick cream i also want three
quarters of a cup of brown sugar packed
into this thing if you're using a scale
that's going to be about 160 some grams
165 ish
lock that mixer off
we're going to mix it up until it's nice
and creamy and yes you might want to
scrape the bowl down
i wasn't kidding about that scrape
makes a difference if you're using a
hand mixer you actually don't have to do
it very much at all because the mixing
uh beaters really like rake the bowl on
the inside back to mixing and in the
meantime let's measure out three
quarters of a cup
of molasses this is going to be
the amazing depth of flavor in our
cookie add that molasses in there
really get that molasses mixed in well
before you add the egg or anything else
in it just makes your life much much
easier you know brown sugar is just
regular sugar
rubbed with molasses makes it so
delicious mix that up i'm gonna crack my
egg into this measuring cup just so i
know there's no shell in there
one egg
and one teaspoon of vanilla
you're probably gonna notice that your
mixture is broken we added a lot of
molasses in there and it's not
emulsifying with the butter that's okay
the flour is gonna bring it all together
so if you see that the mixture is broken
don't panic i'm gonna let that
incorporate for just one minute
okay so that's really well mixed right
now everything's combined we're gonna
dump our dry ingredients in this smells
so good whenever you add spices into the
dry mixture
it just smells amazing mix on low until
almost combined it's okay to see some
streaks here and there we're gonna
finish this off by hand so you always
just give your bowl a once over with a
spatula turn that bottom around and just
make sure it's not all buttery and the
flour hasn't
hasn't mixed in it's really important so
the cookies are uniform nothing becomes
a melty mess gingerbread cookies just
like those chocolate crinkle cookies we
all love
needs a lot of chill time you can't
skimp on it so it's not going to be a 20
minute situation we're gonna divide this
dough out into two batches
and then just press it into a disk
i actually like to give my cookie dough
a roll before it's chilled one this lets
it firm up quicker and cause has more
surface area but two it's way less work
to roll it out once it's nice and firm
into the fridge four hours to overnight
and we'll be right back
once your dough is all chilled out
preheat that oven to 350 get some flour
and let's get to rolling nice and hard
but it's gonna soften up so fast so
let's work quickly well flowering your
surface so you really want to go flower
heavy more than for other cookies we're
going to unwrap this this dough is
notoriously soft but stay tuned i'm
going to show you all my tips and tricks
to get perfect little gingerbread cutout
cookies this cookie dough is gonna get
rolled out to about a quarter of an inch
thick and i'm also gonna flour my
rolling pin even though it's like right
out of the fridge
it's not really cracking if there is a
crack or two you just pinch them
together we're ready to cut so grab
those cookie cutters and just place them
down
just like this
place those cookies right onto your
baking sheet we're going to cut them all
out any shape will do i love these
little gingerbread people but you can do
christmas trees snowflakes candy canes
the works whenever you're making cookies
and you don't want to re-roll the dough
over and over again it's great to have
different sized cookie cutters so you
can really get all those scraps in and
maybe just have one re-roll yeah the
dough is actually soft enough that you
can just plop it right back together and
nobody's gonna know you really want to
have a well-floured surface so your
cookies just pop right off if they start
sticking i'm gonna tell you it's not
gonna be fun you're gonna be sad you can
see this has only been out for just a
few minutes and my scraps are already so
soft i'm gonna see if i can give it a
really quick roll if they get too soft
you just have to go back and put them in
the fridge
[Music]
our gingerbread cookies are ready to go
into the oven 350 for about 10 minutes
smaller shapes might need a little less
time before we decorate our cookies i
want to give you my top gingerbread
cookie decorating tips first off have
fun keep it simple these are really easy
cookies and when you overthink it and
add too many things it gets complicated
and it's not gonna work out number two
when you're piping
don't put the piping tip directly on the
cookie hold it up and let the icing flow
and you'll control and lead the shape
and finally use the outline to your
advantage most of our cookies are gonna
plump up a little bit that's totally
fine you can redraw the outline of the
cookie and it'll be beautiful and clean
and you won't even notice that your
cookie is like a little bit spread out
royal icing small round piping tip this
is a number three and we're just gonna
outline the edge and if they puffed up a
bit that's okay that just means they're
gonna be delicious so just give them a
little outline and when you're using
this icing keep your piping tip up about
like half an inch and let the icing
trail to where it needs to be i have the
shakiest hands but that method lets you
have a nice beautiful clean line just a
couple of dots for the eyes
a little happy face
and then we can do some buttons and some
zigzags on the arms and legs so easy and
just like that look at this cute little
cookie i'm not going to touch it right
now but all you want to do is have a
simple clean decoration the candy canes
are even simpler just give them a double
stripe
and then
they really become like beautiful candy
canes
[Music]
look at how cute that christmas tree is
it could be any shape you want for these
cookies one for me
that is the perfect balance of fall
spices and so delicious hope you get a
chance to make this recipe and if you
like this video check out my holiday
cookie playlist