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Spicy Gingerbread Cookies

Spicy Gingerbread Cookies

Spicy Gingerbread Cookies

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Spicy Gingerbread Cookies
4.8 rating based on 12,345 ratings
4.8/5 (10)
Course: Cutout CookiesDifficulty: Medium
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A spicy gingerbread cookie that’s kicked up a notch with black pepper.

Ingredients

  • 1 cup unsalted butter

  • 1 cup dark-brown sugar, packed

  • 2 large eggs

  • 1 cup unsulfured molasses

  • 6 cups all-purpose flour

  • 1 teaspoon baking soda

  • 1/2 teaspoon baking powder

  • 4 teaspoons ground ginger

  • 4 teaspoons ground cinnamon

  • 1-1/2 teaspoons ground cloves

  • 1/2 teaspoon finely ground black pepper

  • 1-1/2 teaspoons salt

  • Raisins, dragées, and/or red hot candies for decoration (optional)

  • Royal Icing for decoration (optional)

Directions

  • In a large bowl, beat together butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs and molasses. In another bowl, sift together flour, baking soda, baking powder, spices and salt. Stir flour mixture into butter mixture. Divide dough into thirds and wrap each third in plastic wrap. Chill for about 1 hour. Preheat oven to 350 F. Roll dough 1/8 inch thick between two pieces of waxed paper. Cut into shapes with cookie cutters. Transfer shapes to ungreased cookie sheets. If desired, decorate with raisins, dragées, and/or red hot candies. Refrigerate about 15 minutes. Bake for 8-10 minutes or until crisp but not dark. Allow to cool on the cookie sheet for 1 minute, then remove to wire racks to cool completely. If desired, decorate with Royal Icing.

Notes

  • Yield depends entirely on how large your cookie cutters are. The recipe will make about 24 6-inch gingerbread men or 48 3-inch cookies.
  • If you are going to use the cookies for decorations, make a hole for the cord or hook by poking the cookies with a toothpick or skewer as soon as they come out of the oven.
  • Source: based on a recipe from Martha Stewart. We just toned down the black pepper a little bit. Martha uses 1 teaspoon of black pepper but we found it was a little bit too much for the kids. If you’d like to kick it up, add the whole teaspoon of black pepper.

Reviews

Name & Location
(example: Sue in LA)
Rating
Review
Wonderful recipe!!! I have made this recipe for many years and am already on my third batch for Christmas in the middle of November. Family and friends love these!!
- A Baker
Made these yesterday. They are quite good. I skipped the salt entirely. Used baking paper to line my baking sheets, which made it real easy to remove the cookies from the sheet. Only thing is that I expected more of a ginger taste, and the molasses to be a bit less strong. They are nice cookies, but didn't taste like I expected gingerbread to taste. Likely to make them again nonetheless.
- Nick
Great cookie. Used the full tsp pepper and cooked 12 minutes until really crunchy! They did not need frosting.
- jillibean
This recipe is really good. Been doing it for the last 3 years at Christmas time. We triple the recipe and we cook them in commercial machine. Our best friend has a bakery!!! Those cookies are good for weeks and they are great homemade gift for people at work. Go for it!
- boy loves cookie
We've been making these for 3 years and absolutely love them!
- A Baker
This cookies are a favorite in my house. I couldn't imaging mixing these with another than a power mixer, its like mixing concrete. A 1/4 cup of water does help however. This make a ton of cookies. Using the parchment/wax paper keeps the sticky dough from sticking to the rolling pin.
- A Baker
I thought this was a great crisp recipe. My only concern was the dough was a little dry. We ended up adding a bit of water to the dough to make rolling it out easier. Very nice otherwise!
- Ellen
Delish! I made them too thick the first time around so really listen to that 1/8" rule! I cooked them for 8 minutes so they were chewy :).
- Ally
These were so good. I made them this last weekend, to test them for my Christmas party on the 24th. My family loved them. They were a bit hard to stir, but its well worth all the effort. I did not have ground cloves so I used ground nutmeg instead. They came out delicious. My whole family gave me the thumbs up to make this for christmas!
- Lisa C.
I've tried many recipes and this one makes the house just smell like christmas! TIP- I've found that if you refrigorate the dough over night instead of one hour, it allows the spices to blend,very nice, and easier to handle, also you don't have to chill the cut cookies for 15 mins if you do this. Just a tip
- angelina
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