Gingerbread (For Cookies or a Gingerbread House)

"This dough is very easy to work with. We use this gingerbread to make our annual gingerbread houses. One recipe makes 3 fair sized gingerbread houses. This is also works excellent for gingerbread people. From Good Housekeeping Dec 94"
 
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photo by limeandspoontt
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photo by christinemingemorgan photo by christinemingemorgan
photo by bbearnow photo by bbearnow
Ready In:
1hr
Ingredients:
10
Yields:
36 cookies
Serves:
36
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ingredients

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directions

  • In a medium saucepan, heat sugar, molasses, ginger, allspice, cinnamon, and cloves to boiling, stirring occasionally.
  • Remove from heat; stir in soda (it will foam up).
  • Stir in margarine till melted.
  • With a fork, stir in egg, then flour.
  • On a floured surface, knead dough till mixed. Divide dough in half, wrap half with plastic wrap; set aside.
  • Roll half the dough, with a rolling pin, slightly thinner than 1/4 inch.
  • Cut with cutters.
  • Bake at 325F on a cookie sheet for 12 minutes; cool on a wire rack.
  • Makes about 3 dozen 3" gingerbread people.
  • NOTE: We make houses by cutting out our house design (the 2 sides of the roof, two sides, a front and a back of the house) on graph paper, and then placing the graph paper shapes on the dough and cutting the dough shapes out with a knife.

Questions & Replies

  1. hello can you make this ahead of time and refrigerate or freeze it? would like to take it ready to go.
     
  2. Hello all :) Can I use butter instead of margarine? Thanks in advance for letting me know!
     
  3. can I e-mail this recipe
     
  4. Can i use pastry flour instead?
     
  5. What size are the houses? Or do you have a template? Thank you
     
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Reviews

  1. Our gingerbread house is about 10 days old now and its still standing strong and making the house smell wonderful! We built a monstrosity, and made this recipe over and over again and every batch came out fabulous. Tip: If the dough seems too stiff to roll out, add 1 tsp water at a time, working the dough thoroughly in between to make sure you aren't adding too much. Conversely, if the dough is too gooey, sprinkle flour generously as you flatten and roll out. I recommend a silicone sheet for rolling, then you cut away what you don't want and transfer the silicone sheet with the dough on it directly to your cookie sheet and bake! Use the sheet again to remove the baked piece to a cooling table. This will save HUGE amounts of frustration, I promise!
     
  2. I made this at Christmastime, for houses and cookies. I made the first 2 batches with molasses as stated. It was PERFECT! It was very easy to work with, as the recipe states. It was perfect. When I went to make batch 3, I didn't have enough molasses and used dark brown corn syrup (I found the substitution online) THAT batch was horrible, it was sticky and not nearly as tasty. I threw that stuff out and went back and made 2 more batches exactly as the recipe states, with molasses, and those two batches were perfect like the first two! This has become my favorite recipe. The smell and taste were wonderful and the dough was soft and fun to work with, that warm dough in your hands is almost therapeutic! (Just don't substitute anything, follow the recipe as written!)
     
  3. Great tasting, fairly staight forward in a complicated way, haha. I like mine a bit softer so I've shortened the bake time to 9 min, they're kinda fragile but deliciously fluffy. I didn't have time to finish baking my other half, so I stuck it in the refrigerator, and warning to future bakers, this is NOT A GOOD IDEA. I was able to salvage it by crumbling into pieces and adding some water and kneeding it back together, but the refrigerator really made it very dry and hard(literally) to work with. Aside from that, this recipe is fabulous. Absolutely wonderful texture. Thank you! [MLP]
     
  4. easy, quick and tasty - loved the fact that the dough didn't have to chill
     
  5. Was great to work with however I don't think it would have yielded 3 houses.
     
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Tweaks

  1. I used Pamela’s gluten free flour and it worked one for one substitution. I also didn’t have ground ginger so I chopped up crystallized ginger and used a 1/4 cup. I would use more next time. But they are delicious!
     
  2. 2tsp of ginger
     
  3. Excellent! This was a great dough and required minimal effort with perfect results. I only use real butter when baking,it's imperative. I substituted 1c whole wheat flour for the AP flour. Glazed with a lemon glaze (1/4 c. Softened butter, 1/4 c. Lemon juice and 1 1/4 c. Powdered sugar) and frosted cookies warm from the oven. Thanks, we're using this one going forward!
     
  4. Delicious and easy. I used sorghum instead of molasses (I honestly don't know the difference
     
  5. This is the least complicated gingerbread dough recipe I've found!! The directions are easy to follow, and while it took a little time, it was not nearly as bad as I feared it would be. My children were able to help! Also, I had rolling out dough, but this was easy. It handles well and tastes great!! The whole house smells amazing! I'm using this to make my very first gingerbread house. I'm not sure how well the template I used will work, but I know that if it doesn't stay together it's not because of the dough!!! <br/><br/>Stacey<br/><br/>PS- I did use butter instead of margarine.
     

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Hi! Thanks for visiting my page! I just graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Human Nutritional Sciences in May 2008 after 5 years of hard work. My hard work paid off as I was accepted to a post graduate dietetic internship which I am currently completing and will be done in June. The internship allows me achieve professional designation as a registered dietitian. This is a very exciting but also a very busy time for me so I have not been contributing to zaar nearly as much as i'd like to. I have always loved baking and cooking and looking for healthier recipes or ways to make recipes healthier to fit into my lifestyle. I am pesco-vegetarian as I do not want animals to suffer for my consumption. I also love to be active in individual sports and train year round for triathlon. I am both an active racer and volunteer. The distance I prefer most is the Sprint distance - 750m swim, 20km bike, 5km run. This upcoming race season marks my 16th year of participating in triathlon. I love it just as much, if not more, than I did 16 years ago!! I also have a newfound love for Iyengar yoga. I have a profound love for animals and the pretty little kitty you see as my icon is my 16 1/2 year old cat Snuggles. Sadly, Snug passed away in March 2006, and is dearly, dearly missed. Snuggles <a href="http://photobucket.com" target="_blank"><img src="http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e13/tri_rules85/snuggles2VSM.jpg" border="0" alt="Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket"></a> The photo below of our two new family additions. Layla (the calico) came home with us from the Humane Society in September and Saxon (black and white) came home two months later as a companion for Layla. Gladly they have become very good pals. <a href="http://photobucket.com" target="_blank"><img src="http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e13/tri_rules85/saxonandlaylasleepVSM.jpg" border="0" alt="Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket"></a> <a href="http://photobucket.com/" target="_blank"><img src="http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e13/tri_rules85/zaargamestext.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting"></a> <img src="http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b399/susied214/beartag_1_1.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting"> <img src="http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b399/susied214/adopted_1_1.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting"> <img src="http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y53/DUCHESS13/World%20Tour/ZWT2.gif"> Playing for: <img src="http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e13/tri_rules85/kitchenexpeditionslogo.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a> <img src="http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b399/susied214/permanent%20collection/200_artistrichardneuman-art-prints_.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting"> <img src="http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b399/susied214/permanent%20collection/untitled.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting"> <img src="http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b399/susied214/projects/pacbanner.jpg" border="0" alt="Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket"> <img src="http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b399/susied214/projects/200_PACpic.jpg" border="0" alt="Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket"> <img src="http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y53/DUCHESS13/Zaar%20World%20Tour%203/ZWT3-Participation.gif"> Playing for: <img src="http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e13/tri_rules85/MixinVixensbannerSM.jpg" border="0" alt="Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket"></a> <a href=http://www.recipezaar.com/cookbook.php?bookid=177335 target="_blank"><img src="http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y53/DUCHESS13/RSC%20Banners/RSC9-LUV2Bake.jpg"></a> <a href=http://www.recipezaar.com/cookbook.php?bookid=177334 target="_blank"><img src="http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y53/DUCHESS13/RSC%20Banners/RSC10-LUV2Bake.jpg"></a> <img src="http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y53/DUCHESS13/RSC%20Banners/RSC11-LuvtoBake.jpg"> <img src="http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b280/carolinamoon21/TasteofYellow.jpg"> <img src="http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b399/susied214/permanent%20collection/Adopted1smp.jpg" border="0" alt="Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket"> <img src="http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b399/susied214/permanent%20collection/smPACp.jpg" border="0" alt="Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket"> <img src="http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b280/carolinamoon21/Ingredients/Other/photo-swap-7sticky.jpg"> <img src="http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b399/susied214/permanent%20collection/PAC08Main.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"> <img src="http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b399/susied214/permanent%20collection/adoptedspring08.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"> <a href="http://www.amazingcounter.com"><img border="0" src="http://cb.amazingcounters.com/counter.php?i=2199213&c=6597952" alt="track net visits"></a> <a href="http://www.getisp.info/dsl-service.html">popup blockers</a>
 
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