Christmas baking is the order of this week I think. I want to bake a lot of the old favourites, like sugar cookies, and shortbread, and these ginger icebox cookies, but I'm also going to try some totally different cookies/treats too. I'm going to adapt a basic butter cookie recipe to incorporate my homemade raspberry jam somehow (not 100% sure what I want to do yet), and I've also promised some people that I'd attempt some peppermint patties. So I apologies to my hubby in advance if he doesn't get any 'food' this week, just cookies to live on! :)
Ginger Icebox Cookies
makes 35-40
1/2 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup sugar
1 large egg
1/4 cup molasses
2 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp salt
- in a small bowl combine the flour, ginger and salt and mix well; set aside.
- in an electric stand mixer, cream together the butter and sugar until fluffy.
- add the egg until incorporated, and then add the molasses and mix well.
- mix in the dry ingredients and blend to form a stiff dough.
- divide the mixture into 2 'logs', approximately 2-3 inch diameter and wrap each log in wax paper. Refrigerate for 2 hours to harden dough. (The dough can be kept in the refrigerator for up to a week, or freeze and you can have fresh baked cookies whenever you want them :)
- when ready to bake, preheat the oven to 350 F.
- remove one of the logs from the fridge and slice into 1/8 inch thick cookies; place onto an ungreased cookie sheet.
- bake for 8-10 minutes, until edges are beginning to brown.
- transfer to a wire rack to cool.
Ginger Icebox Cookie ingredients.
cream together the butter and sugar.
the mixture turns a wonderful colour when the molasses is added.
once you've added the dry ingredients, form the dough into 2 'logs' and wrap in wax paper.
slice the dough into 1/8 inch thick cookies.
place the cookies onto ungreased cookie sheets - because the dough is cold they won't spread very much, if at all.
bake until the edges are just browning.
and enjoy! :)
