Gingerbread Cookies

Picture from C&H Sugar

Gingerbread Cookie Murder

**Sally makes these for the Christmas buffet at the Lake Eden Inn.**

DO NOT preheat oven — This dough must chill overnight.

* 4 and 1/4 cups all-purpose flour (don't sift it—pack it down in the cup when you measure it)

#### Cookie Icing

* 2 cups sifted confectioners sugar (powdered sugar)
* 1/8 teaspoon salt
* 1/2 teaspoon vanilla (or other flavoring)
* 1/4 cup cream

### Directions

* DO NOT preheat oven—This dough must chill overnight.
* In a large bowl, mix the softened butter with the white sugar.
* Add the half-cup of hot strong coffee and then stir in the dark molasses.
* Mix in the baking soda, salt, ground ginger, ground cloves and cinnamon. Stir well.
* Add the flour in half-cup increments, mixing after each addition. Give everything a final stir and then cover your bowl with plastic wrap and store it in the refrigerator overnight.
* In the morning when you are ready to bake, preheat the oven to 375°F, rack in the middle position.
* Divide the dough into four parts for ease in rolling. Roll out the first part of the dough on a floured board. If you plan to use gingerbread men or reindeer-shaped cookie cutters, roll your dough out to 1/4 inch thick. (Arms and legs tend to snap off when you frost them if they’re rolled too thin.) Otherwise roll your dough out to 1/8 inch thick.
* Dip the cookie cutters in flour and cut out cookies, getting as many as you can from the the sheet of dough. Use a metal spatula to remove the cookies from the rest of the sheet of dough and place them on an UNGREASED cookie sheet. Leave at least an inch and a half between cookies.
* Once you’ve cut out your cookies, there will be leftover dough. You can gather it into a ball, re-flour the board, and re-roll it. (I've done this up to three times—the fourth time the dough got too stiff to roll well.)
* If you want to use colored sugar or sprinkles to decorate, put it on now, before baking and press it down just a bit with your fingers or with the spatula. If you’d rather frost the cookies, wait until they’re baked and completely cooled.
* Bake 1/4 inch thick cookies at 375°F for 10 to 12 minutes. Leave them on the sheet for a minute or two and then transfer them to a wire rack to complete cooling.
* Bake 1/8 inch thick cookies at 375°F for 8 to 10 minutes. Leave them on the cookie sheet for a minute or two and then transfer them to a wire rack to complete cooling.

#### If you hate to roll out cookies

* You don't absolutely have to roll out these cookies. Take your dough out of the refrigerator, preheat the oven to 350°F, and get out a nice sturdy teaspoon. (We use a 2-teaspoon scooper at The Cookie Jar.)
* Put approximately a half-cup of white sugar in a bowl. You'll be making dough balls and rolling the cookies in the sugar before placing them on the baking sheet.
* Lightly grease your cookie sheet or spray it with Pam or another nonstick cooking spray.
* Scoop out some cookie dough and make dough balls about the size of walnuts with your fingers. Roll the balls in the sugar and then place them on the cookie sheet, 12 to a standard-sized sheet.
* Flatten the dough balls with the smooth bottom of a drinking glass, the blade of a metal spatula, or your impeccably clean hands. Make sure they're no thicker than 1/4 inch.
* Bake the cookies at 350°F, for no more than 8 minutes. (You don't want them as hard as rocks.) Remove them from the oven, let them cool on the sheet for a minute, and then transfer them to a wire rack to cool completely.
* You can frost all three types of these cookies if you wish, even those that were made from dough balls dipped in sugar. You can use your own favorite frosting or the Cookie Icing recipe below:

#### Cookie Icing

* Mix up icing, adding a little more cream if it’s too thick and a little more powdered sugar if it’s too thin.
* If you’d like to frost the cookies in different colors, divide the icing and put it in several small bowls. Add drops of desired food coloring to each bowl.
* Use a frosting knife, or use a brush to “paint” the cookies you’ve baked.

**Yield:** 3 to 4 dozen cookies made with small cookie cutters, 2 to 3 dozen cookies made with large cookie cutters, 8 to 10 dozen dough ball cookies.

## Conversion Charts

See Baking Conversion Chart for non-USA baking conversions.