Gingerbread Goodness

I am just so excited to share this post with you!  I love Martha Stewart gingerbread!  You know, she has several recipes you can find for gingerbread, and they are all good.  You can really trust her with your baking needs, I can tell you that from experience.  The one thing you have to know about ALL of them however is this:  Use a STAND mixer…NOT a hand mixer for any of these recipes.  Trust me, after making these cookies for the first time with John when we were dating, I was at his house and embarrassingly fried his Mom’s hand mixer.  WHOOPS!  I felt really bad because I was so poor and couldn’t replace it!  During that time it was Halloween, so we made leaves, bats, spider webs and pumpkins.  They all turned out so beatifully.  We were very excited! 

So I wanted to do something special with these little works of delicious art!  So I printed out one of the Papertrey “My Timeless Templates” called “All Boxed Up” and took some white cardstock and blue jersey fabric and sewed around the outer cover of the template.  I them took some more of the white cardstock to print the inner envelope boxes on.  I then cut them out and scored as shown and stamped on them gleefully with the Papertrey “Rustic Snowflakes” and “Snowfall Additions” sets.  Then I added some buttons and tags which I stamped with the “Holiday Treats” stamp set.  I could use this set all day long!  I LOVE it and there are a ton of uses for it.  The I took some of the Papertrey glassine bags and put two smaller snowflake cookies in each bag and finished the bag off with some buttons and hemp.  Hope you love it…and here is the recipes for both the cookies and the royal icing:

Gingerbread Cookies:

Dry ingredients:

3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour     

1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 1/4 teaspoons ground ginger

1 1/4 teaspoons allspice

1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

*****

wet ingredients:

2 sticks unsalted butter

3/4 cup granulated sugar

3/4 cup packed dark brown sugar

1 tablespoon plus one teaspoon grated, fresh ginger ( I have made it before without this and it is fine)

1 large egg

1/4 cup unsulfured molasses

In a large bowl whisk together dry ingredients and set aside.

Using an electric mixer with the paddle attachment, beat butter, both sugars and the fresh ginger on medium speed until light and fluffy.  Beat in egg and molasses to combine.  With mixer on slow speed, gradually add the dry ingredients to the mix.  Turn out dough onto a clean surface.  Dough is thick. Then cut the dough in half and form the dough into disc shapes, then cover them in platic wrap and put them in the fridge for at least 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. 

Bring the dough out onto the counter and let it sit a bit to prevent cracking when you roll it out.  THis will allow the butter in the dough to soften a bit and make it easier to work with.  Roll out dough sandwiched in between some saran wrap with a bit of flour on each side.  I like doing it this way because then the dough doesn’t stick to the roller.  Just a “me” thing I guess.  Once dough is rolled out to 1/4 of an inch all around, put back in the fridge for a couple of minutes to let it firm up again.  Bring it out when firm and then cut out using your favorite cookie cutters. 

BAKE FOR 12-15 minutes.  The cookies will puff up a lot, so leave room in between on the cookie sheets.

ROYAL ICING RECIPE

You can do royal icing a couple of different ways, but I will give you two options of making it just in case you don’t have some of the ingredients on hand.

1lb confectioners sugar

5 tablespoons meringue powder ***other option: 3 egg whites beaten until frothy and add 1teaspoon of cream of tartar***

1/2 cup of water

if using egg whites…start by frothing egg whites and cream of tartar together until frothy…but not making white peaks.  If not and yu are using meringue powder, just add all ingredients together from the start.

put in sugar

beat and add water to mix…keep beating until smooth. 

To add extra luster and sheen and keep your royal icing from hardening too quickly, I like to use a couple of drops of glycerin.  Quite nice stuff it is for royal icing! 

Color as you wish.  To get the pale robin’s egg blue, I only added one drop of food coloring to a small bowl of white icing.  Always start with one drop of color.  You can always add more if you need it.  It is actually more vibrant than the photos are showing.  I made this gift for my friend who conducts the kids at church.  I have been very much into really thinking abou the people I am making things for while I am making them.  Even if they don’t know I am thinking of them, I am trying to be very directed in my thoughts concerning the recipient.  It also often helps me think of design ideas just by thinking of what that person may like as well.  It is a very nice process.  I DO hope you enjoyed today’s post and have a GREAT Monday!

Template: My Timeless Template: “All Boxed Up”

Stamps: Rustic Snowflakes , Snowfall Additions, Holiday Treats

Ink: Versa Magic Ocean Depth, Papertrey Ink Ocean Tides

Ribbon: Webster’s Pages Trims and Lace

Bags:  Medium Glassine Bags

Other: Marvy Super Jumbo Snowflake Punch, Buttons: Buttons Galore and More, Basic Grey