HOME & GARDEN CONSUMER GUIDE

Make Festive Gingerbread Cookies

For Christmas, my mother always bought an elaborate gingerbread house. Some cooks like to make their own, but this can be time-consuming. If you prefer eating gingerbread to looking at it, iced gingerbread cookies are a better project, one that pays off twice.

First, these cookies are enjoyable even before the holidays. Children as young as five can mix the icing and drizzle colored sugar onto the baked cookies, turning them into sparkling stars, wreaths and round baubles.

Turning out a good size batch of cookies requires a full afternoon, or a long evening, as the dough has to chill, and the cookies must cool completely before they are iced. Or, you can make the cookies in one session, then ice them up to several days later. They store beautifully in an airtight metal container.

These gingerbread cookies are healthier than most. The dough is one-third whole-wheat flour, which gives the cookies good snap, both in flavor and texture. Just make sure to get whole-wheat pastry flour, and be sure to flour your work surface and the rolling pin generously. Making the icing with milk instead of egg whites makes it creamier, easier to spread and drizzle.

Gingerbread Cookies with Holiday Icing

• 2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
• 1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
• 1/2 tsp. baking soda
• 2 tsp. ground ginger
• 1 tsp. ground cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp. ground allspice
• 1/4 tsp. ground cardamom
• 1/4 tsp. ground cloves
• 1/4 tsp. ground black pepper
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
• 1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
• 1/2 cup unsulphured molasses
• 1 large egg
• 1 1/2 cups confectioners' sugar, sifted
• 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
• 2 1/2-4 Tbsp. 2% (reduced fat) milk
• Colored sugar, sprinkles, and/or silver dragées

In a bowl, mix together both flours with baking soda, ginger, allspice, cardamom, cloves and pepper; set aside. In another bowl, beat butter with sugar until fluffy. Beat in molasses, then the egg. (The mixture may look slightly curdled.) At low speed, mix in half the dry ingredients until well-blended. Mix in remaining dry ingredients until dough is thick enough to be shaped.

Divide the dough into two. Place each on a sheet of wax paper. Shape each portion of dough into a 1-inch thick rectangle. Wrap and refrigerate until thoroughly chilled, 2 to 24 hours.

Arrange a rack in the upper and lower third of the oven. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease three cookie sheets or cover them with baking parchment.

Using a lightly-floured rolling pin and a well-floured surface, roll out one rectangle of dough to 1/4-inch thickness. If dough cracks, smooth it together with your fingertips. Working quickly, cut dough into 2 1/2-inch rounds or stars. Place cut-out pieces on one of the prepared baking sheets. Repeat this process with the second rectangle of dough and baking sheet. (If desired, gather up scraps of dough and press together with hands into a rectangle. Wrap in plastic wrap, set in refrigerator to chill and roll out later to cut out and bake more cookies. There should be enough to bake one more sheet of cookies, for about 12 minutes.)

Bake cookies 6 minutes. Reverse position of baking sheets. Bake 4-6 minutes or until cookies are barely colored at edges. Transfer cookies to wire rack and cool completely.

Sift confectioners’ sugar into a bowl. Mix in vanilla and 2 teaspoons of the milk. Add more milk gradually until icing can be spread on cookies and drizzled from a spoon. Ice cookies and decorate with colored sugar, sprinkles, and dragées.

Makes 36 cookies.

Per serving: 104 calories, 3 g. total fat (2 g. saturated fat), 19 g. carbohydrate, 1 g. protein, less than 1 g. dietary fiber, 23 mg. sodium.

By Dana Jacobi for the American Institute for Cancer Research
“Something Different” is written for the American Institute for Cancer Research (AICR) by Dana Jacobi, author of The Joy of Soy, and recipe creator for AICR’s Stopping Cancer Before It Starts.