Gingerbread Biscuits (Cookies)
These gingerbread biscuits are crisp and hold their shape. Sweet and buttery with plenty of warm spice. A perfect festive baking project!This recipe makes around 40 biscuits, depending on how thick you roll out the dough and the size of the shapes.Make sure the butter is soft; it will make the job of creaming far easier. I like to be realistic. It’s important to note that making gingerbread biscuits requires patience and time. While the dough is quick to prepare and the baking time is short, cutting out the shapes can take some time. Keeping the dough chilled is essential, as it becomes more difficult to work with when it warms up. You will need to divide the dough into at least two parts for easier handling. Be prepared to bake the biscuits in several batches, especially if you’re re-rolling the scraps.
Servings: 40 biscuits, depending on size and thickness
Equipment
- 2 baking sheets
Ingredients
- 225 g unsalted butter (softened)
- 170 g soft dark brown sugar
- 1 egg
- 250 g plain flour
- 90 g cornflour/corn starch
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 1 ½ teaspoons ground ginger
- 1 ½ teaspoons ground nutmeg half a whole nutmeg
- 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
(Optional) Royal Icing
- 15 g egg white about half the white of one egg
- 100 g icing sugar
- ⅛ teaspoon cream of tartar
Instructions
- Cream Butter & Sugar – put the softened butter and sugar in the stand-mixer bowl. Cream in a stand mixer fitted with the blade attachment at low-medium speed until well-combined with no streaks of butter. You will need to stop and use a flexible spatula to help it along.225 g unsalted butter170 g soft dark brown sugar
- Egg – whisk the egg into a small bowl. Add the egg to the butter and sugar. Blend until well-combined. Don’t worry if it looks a little curdled at this point.1 egg
- Dry Ingredients – sift the flour, cornflour, salt and spices together over a large bowl. Tip roughly a third of this dry mix into the wet ingredients. Mix at low speed until combined. Use a flexible spatula to make sure all the flour is incorporated. Add the rest of the dry ingredients in two more batches.250 g plain flour90 g cornflour/corn starch1 ½ teaspoons ground ginger1 ½ teaspoons ground nutmeg¼ teaspoon salt2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
- Baking Paper – lay a sheet of baking paper on the work surface roughly the size of your baking sheet. Pile roughly half the soft sticky dough into the centre. Lay another sheet of baking paper over the top to sandwich the dough. Press on the dough with the palms of your hand to start to ease out.
- Roll Out - switch to a rolling pin. If the dough starts to get close to the edges of the baking paper, use a butter knife to gently slice off some dough to trim. Add this section elsewhere and roll out again between the sheets of baking paper to merge. Once you have finished rolling, drag the baking paper ‘sandwich’ onto the baking sheet. Transfer to the fridge for around 20 minutes (or longer is fine).
- Repeat Steps 4 & 5 - with the remaining half of the dough.
- Preheat Oven – to 160°C
- Cut Biscuits – remove one portion of dough from the fridge. Gently peel off the top layer of baking paper and use this to line the baking sheet. Cut out your shapes and lay on the baking sheet, allowing a little space between them. Don’t move them now until cooked and cooled slightly. Repeat with the other portion of dough.
- Bake – 10-12 minutes.
- Re-roll Scraps – Combine the leftover dough from both batches. Re-roll to cut out more shapes as required, returning rolled out dough to the fridge again to firm up.
- (optional) Royal Icing - whisk the egg white and cream of tartar with an electric hand whisk until frothy. Add in the sugar little by little and whisk at low speed until incorporated. Thin the icing with tiny amounts of water (¼ teaspoon at a time - you might need 3 or so) to get the desired consistency for piping. You can add drops of colouring or flavour to customise. It doesn't seem like much, but it's plenty for this batch of biscuits. You can spoon into the corner of a small ziplock bag and cut a tiny bit of the corner off to improvise a small piping bag if you don't have a dedicated one.15 g egg white100 g icing sugar⅛ teaspoon cream of tartar
Notes
You can make the dough in advance and keep it in the fridge for up to 2 weeks or freezer for up to 3 months before using. Store in a flattened ball that is well wrapped. Bring to room temperature before proceeding to the rolling out step.
Storage
Store the biscuits at room temperature.
They keep for up to two weeks but will soften slightly after 2-3 days.