I am not a big fan of gingerbread cookies, never have been. But my 4 year old has a Christmas book that I read to him and the Mom makes gingerbread men with the kids. He has been begging me to make them, so I finally caved. I found this recipe on "A Bountiful Kitchen's" blog and to my surprise they were AMAZING! I ate like 7 cookies that night and felt sick afterwards. The icing is absolutely amazing! You must try this recipe, gingerbread lover or not!
Ginger Cream Cookies with Brown Butter Icing
adapted from "A Bountiful Kitchen"
Cookies:
2 cubes or 1 cup butter
1 cup molasses
1 cup white sugar
1 rounded teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon ground cloves (only used a tiny little pinch of cloves, not the whole tsp. I'm not a clove lover)
1 teaspoon salt
2 beaten eggs
1 tablespoon baking soda, dissolved in 1/4 cup water
6 cups flour, approximately
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Bring butter, molasses, sugar, spices and salt to boil. Cool.
Pour into large bowl.
Add two beaten eggs.
Add the soda/ water mixture to the batter. The batter will foam up a bit.
Add the flour 1 cup at a time. After mixing in flour, add more if needed to produce dough that is not too sticky to roll out. Roll out a portion of the dough with floured rolling pin to about 1/4 inch thickness.
Using a cookie or biscuit cutter 2 1/4 inch in diameter, cut the cookies and place on ungreased cookie sheet. ( I used a gingerbread man, christmas tree and candy cane cookie cutters.)
Bake for about 8 minutes at 375 degrees. Ice while cookies are warm.
Brown Butter Icing:
1 cube or 1/2 cup butter
1/3 cup cream, half and half or milk (if you want the icing to be thin, use milk)
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 lb powdered sugar
dash salt
Brown butter over medium heat in saucepan. Remove from heat as soon as butter turns golden. Add rest of ingredients. Ice cookies while still warm.
yield about 4 dozen cookies.
Tips:
-To brown butter, place in a sauce pan over medium heat. Swirl butter around occasionally and watch very closely. It is done when it is a golden brown color. This gives the icing a nutty flavor.
- Don't need to be refrigerated, but you may refrigerate after assembling the dough.
- Clear counter space, you'll need it to leave the cookies out till the icing is set up.
- Once you start baking, you need to make the icing, so it will be ready when the cookies come out of the oven.
- These cookies freeze well
