Homemade Gingerbread Cookies Recipe

Even though I’ve always loved gingerbread cookies, I’ve never actually made them before. I love baking with the kids, so I thought gingerbread cookies would be the perfect recipe to make together.  

It’s fun for the kids to make because they get to cut out different shapes, decorate the shapes, eat what they made and then share their gingerbread cookie creations with friends and family.

Homemade Gingerbread cookies recipes\

The gingerbread cookies are a little more labour intensive than other cookies, probably because I’ve never made them before, so there was a bit of a learning curve. The end result was great though, so here’s the recipe:

Homemade Gingerbread Cookies Recipe

Ingredients for Gingerbread Cookies:

– 2 cups all-purpose flour (and 1/2-1 cup of flour for later)
– 1 Tbsp cinnamon
– 4 tsp ground ginger
– 1/2 tsp all spice
– 1/2 tsp baking soda
– 1/2 tsp salt
– 3/4 cup unsalted butter, melted
– 3/4 cup of brown sugar
– 1 egg
– 1/2 cup fancy molasses

Instructions for Gingerbread Cookies:

1. Preheat the over to 350 degrees. Mix 2 cups of flour with cinnamon, ground ginger, all spice, baking soda and salt in a large bowl with a spatula. Then make a hole in the centre.

Homemade Gingerbread cookies recipe
2. In a separate bowl, beat the butter and brown sugar with an electric mixer, on medium for about two minutes.

3. Beat in the egg and molasses.

Homemade Gingerbread cookies recipe
4. Pour the molasses mixture into the well of the flour mixture and stir in until everything is combined.

5. Add in more flour, 1/4 cup at a time, until the dough isn’t sticky anymore but it’s still soft. (So you may not actually need to use the whole 1 cup of flour, I found that out the hard way.)

6. Divide the dough into four parts. Make each part into a ball, then flatten each ball into a disc. Wrap each piece in plastic. Then leave it in the fridge for at least 1 hour. (We ended up leaving it in the fridge for three days and it was fine.)

Homemade Gingerbread cookies recipe
7. Take the dough out and leave it on the counter for a minimum of 15 minutes to warm it up before rolling it out.

TIP: If your dough is crumbly when you roll it out (as mine was) add a little bit of water or milk to soften it up and knead it all together. Put it back in the fridge for at least an hour before trying again.

8. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

9. Sprinkle flour on a clean surface and roll out one of the discs of dough until it’s 1/8 of an inch thick.

Homemade Gingerbread cookies recipe
10. Use cookie cutters to make fun shapes

cutting cookie shapes
11. Repeat with the rest of the dough.
12. Place all the cookie shapes on the baking sheets.

shapes in a baking sheet

13. Put them in the oven for 7-8 minutes.
14. Let them cool before icing them. Her is the original recipe as well as the recipe for Royal Icing.
15. Once they are iced, let them dry for 30 minutes, (in an ideal world.) In a world with kids, the cookies get eaten while the icing is still dripping. 🙂

Homemade Gingerbread cookies recipe

Do you make Gingerbread Cookies for the holidays? If not, what’s your favourite holiday cookie recipe, please share!

6 thoughts on “Homemade Gingerbread Cookies Recipe

  1. They look great Salma. Only thing is you forgot one of the fun parts: you add smarties onto the icing (or sprinkles or licorice whips or gum drops – or, even better, all of the above:)

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