Gingerbread Man Cookies

Ingredients:

*3/4 cup Butter, room temperature or Shortening

*1 and 1/2 cups Granulated Sugar

*1/4 cup Molasses

*1 cup Whipping Cream or Canned Milk or (1/2 cup Sour Cream and 1/2 Cup Milk)

*1 tablespoon Vanilla Extract

*1 teaspoon Salt

*4 and 1/2 cups All-purpose Flour

*1 teaspoon Cinnamon

*3/4 teaspoon Ground Ginger

*1/2 teaspoon Allspice

*1/4 teaspoon Ground Cloves

*4 teaspoons Baking Powder

Instructions:
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Pre-heat oven 350*F.
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Cream together in stand mixer: Butter, sugar, molasses, cream, vanilla and salt.
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Sift together in bowl: Flour, cinnamon, ginger, allspice, cloves and baking powder.
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Slowly add the flour mixture to the creamed mixture in stand mixer on low speed and mix well and (scrapping down the sides of the bowl occasionally) forms a soft dough ball.

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Hint: Refrigeration of the dough will always make the cookies roll, cut and cook a little better; also using a cooled 1/2 baking sheet with each batch of cookies helps too!
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Roll out cookie dough using half the dough at a time, so not to over working the dough and cut cookies with a Gingerbread man cookie cutter.
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Place cookies on a Silpat covered half baking sheet or cookie sheet of your choice sprayed with cooking spray or covered with parchment paper.
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Bake for 8-10 minutes or when edges barely start to turn a little darker brown but not burned. Also depends on the size of cookie.
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Hint: I’ve always usually mixed my cookies by hand, but my daughter is a pastry chef and mixes everything in stand mixer but either way works great!

Glacé Icing Recipe

Ingredients:

*2 cups Powder Sugar

*2 tablespoons Corn Syrup

*1/4 teaspoon Almond Extract or 1 teaspoon Clear Vanilla Extract

*2-3 tablespoons Heavy Whipping Cream

*1/2 teaspoon Butter Flavored Crisco or White Shortening for extra white Icing

Instructions:

In a bowl add the above ingredients and beat/whisk with a hand mixer with whisk attachment and beat/whisk until smooth.

Divide Glaze into 2 bowls and add red food gel to one bowl leaving the other white.

***Use this recipe for glazing cookies and the piping of the outside of cookies. Piping helps contain the icing while you pipe flood/fill in the center of the cookies.  Pipe on the red icing first then let set overnight.  Note: I’m usually not that patient, so I wait just until red color has set and then add the white or the layered red color, if eating them that day. But for best results is to wait overnight before adding additional colors.

***Use a pastry bag for each color of frosting you want to use. The small round tip for piping around the edge and then I used a plastic or Silicone Drip bottle with tip lid to fill in the center of the cookies which had a larger opening.

*Pipe on Icing as desired on each Gingerbread Man.

Enjoy!

Lindy