How to make Gingerbread Cookies

It is both fun and interesting to make gingerbread cookies for the people you love during Christmas. Since, baking cookies and cakes is considered as a tradition every year for Christmas, coming up with new ideas for the same can be very entertaining. Gingerbread cookies are not always meant to be shaped as men, but you can use your creativity to make various shapes like fruits, flowers, hearts, stars, etc. Decorating them after they are baked can be an even more fun activity as you get to use different colored icing and candies for decoration. Thus, if you are eager to find out how to make gingerbread cookies in various styles, well, here are some cookie recipes for you. Take a look.

Gingerbread Cookies Recipe

Making gingerbread cookies is very easy and takes hardly any time for preparation. So, if you are having guests home for Christmas, on very short notice, these can surely be your saviors! Even though, tradition says, gingerbread men are the most anticipated types of Christmas cookies, I am sure you would love to find out how to make gingerbread cookies in other shapes and use some cake decorating ideas for cookies as well. So, to give you a slight idea for the same, find out how to make gingerbread cookies from scratch, in the paragraphs below.

Basic Gingerbread Men Recipe
Ingredients:

• 4 cups flour
• ¾ cup molasses
• 1¼ teaspoons baking soda
• 2 teaspoons ginger
• 1 tablespoons cinnamon
• ½ cup brown sugar
• ½ teaspoon ground cloves
• ½ cup softened butter
• 2 eggs

Directions:
In a bowl, mix the flour, ginger, cloves, cinnamon and the baking soda so that the ingredients are mixed well. In another bowl, add the brown sugar and butter and whisk it till a soft paste is formed, then adding eggs and molasses to this mixture. These cookies are also a type of molasses cookies. Combine the dry and paste ingredients together and knead it till a dough is formed. Make two flat rounds from this dough and refrigerate it for two hours by wrapping in a plastic foil. Roll the dough with some flour till it is ¼ inches thick and then cut out cookie men from this dough. Place them on a greased baking sheet and bake them in a preheated oven to 350 degrees, for about 10 minutes. Then make icing and use some great cookie decorating for sleeves, eyes and a smile on the gingerbread men once they are cooled. Your delicious gingerbread men are ready to be eaten!

Butterscotch Flavored Gingerbread Cookies
Ingredients:

• ⅓ cup light molasses
• 1 package Butterscotch flavored morsels
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 4 cups flour
• 1½ teaspoons ground cinnamon
• ¾ teaspoon ground cloves
• 1½ teaspoons ground ginger
• 1½ cups packed brown sugar
• 1 cup butter or margarine
• 1 large egg
• ½ teaspoon salt

Directions:
To learn how to make gingerbread cookies which are flavored with butterscotch, all you have to do is add in this extra ingredient to the basic cookie recipe. Thus, mix all the dry ingredients in one bowl and whisk them well, till they are together. Then beat the butter, sugar, egg and molasses in another bowl till it forms a soft paste, then add in the flour and butterscotch morsels. Mix the mixture till a dough is formed and them knead it thoroughly. Refrigerate it and then roll it to the desired thickness, cut out shapes like pears, circles, gingerbread men, stars, snowflakes, Christmas trees, etc. and place them on the greased baking dish. Bake these unique types of cookies at 350 degrees F for 10 minutes and then cool. With white cream icing, decorate the cookies in various ways, and then serve.

With these great ways on how to make gingerbread cookies, hope you are ready with all the ingredients! So, hope you have a great time making these delicious gingerbread cookies for your friends and family and have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.