Gingerbread Cookies from Safeway Holiday Recipes

I was asked to try making a Safeway holiday recipe of my choice this weekend.  I decided to try out three of their recipes!  I love our local Safeway, and not just because my husband used to work there 😉  (Yesterday was his last day!  Woo-hoo!)  Although I’m getting reimbursed for my ingredients for these three posts, I am only doing this because I shop at Safeway and Eric and I both enjoyed these dishes.  Check out the fudge ring and lemon dill marinated shrimp.

The final recipe I made was gingerbread cookies.  Eric and I love gingerbread and I’ve been trying different recipes for our annual gingerbread house competition so I thought I should test this one out.  As you can see, I’m no expert with the frosting, in fact I didn’t even use a frosting bag or tips, just a ziploc bag with the corner cut off or a toothpick.

I’m not sure if I did something wrong with this recipe.  It says that the dough will be a little wet to the touch, but mine was like cake batter!  I ended up adding an extra 1/2 cup or so of flour because I knew there was no way I could roll that out or cut shapes from it.  I don’t know what happened, I think I must have accidentally measured the flour wrong in the midst of sifting it.  My other thought is that I simply added a stick of butter that was melted without measuring it after melting.  But I think if anything the butter would have a little less volume from melting, not more.  So any issues I had with this recipe were most likely due to my own scatterbrainedness!  (Okay it’s been a year and I’ve made the recipe 4 times now. It was definitely incorrect, only half the flour, so I’ve changed the recipe so that it actually works!)

You don’t have to stick with gingerbread men, I made women, angels, trees and snowmen as well.  These are a really fun option for an edible gift for the holidays.  My sister makes cookies to give as gifts each year and they’re always well received.  They’re also great as a hostess gift for a party, or you can keep them on a holiday plate covered with saran wrap to offer to guests or carolers who drop by.  I’m planning to try this recipe again to see if I just measured wrong, but I’m not sure it will work for our gingerbread house.  I LOVE it for cookies because it’s nice and chewy which is how I want my cookies.  I’ll try baking some cookies longer tomorrow and letting it sit a day to see how hard it gets.  I’ll let you know!

I’m just listing the egg white royal icing as that’s what I used, if you’d like to use meringue powder you can get it from the Safeway recipe.

Gingerbread Holiday Cookies

Ingredients

Gingerbread
4 cups all-purpose flour, sifted before measuring
1/3 cup sugar
1 tsp salt
1 cup molasses
1/2 cup melted butter
1 egg
1/4 cup hot water
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1½ tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1 tsp nutmeg

Royal Icing
2 large egg whites
2 tsp fresh lemon juice
3 cups confectioners (powdered) sugar, sifted

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Sift together flour, sugar, salt, baking soda and spices.  In the bowl of an electric mixer blend the dry ingredients

Add melted butter, molasses, egg and gradually add water until dough comes together. Dough will be a little wet to the touch

Flour a work surface and your rolling pin and roll dough to 1/4″ thick.  Cut dough into shapes, Place shapes on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper or sprayed with non-stick spray.

Bake at 350 degrees for about 8-10 minutes.  Allow to cool before decorating.

Royal Icing (Using Egg Whites)
In the bowl of an electric mixer beat egg whites with the lemon juice.  Add sifted confectioners sugar.  Beat on low speed until combined and smooth

Use icing right away or transfer to an air-tight container. Keep covered with plastic wrap when not in use. Royal icing hardens when exposed to air. Keep covered with plastic wrap when not in use.

Approximate cost/serving: These are a really affordable gift option.  The whole batch of cookies cost just under $3 to make and the frosting $1.  That’s 11 cents a cookie.  I like to give 3 cookies per person in a cellophane bag tied with ribbon.  Cheap gift!!!

Vegetarian: Yes!