By Holly Sosa
There is one cardinal Christmas tradition here in the Sosa home. Christmas cookies must be decorated. Christmas just ain’t gonna happen unless gingerbread cookies are full covered in frosting, candy, and copious amounts of holiday cheer. It’s a tradition I did every single year without fail with my Grandma Eilene. Her patience with my siblings and I still amazes me when I look back and I try to channel her calm demeanor with my crazy kiddos each year. In fact, I have such wonderful memories of this tradition, that when we did it last year I sent my grandmother a video thanking her for doing it with us. She passed away days later and I am thankful every single day that I shared that moment with her. It was a very real affirmation of just how meaningful these little traditions are. And because of this, Christmas just isn’t Christmas without our annual cookie decorating night.
This year, I made a Classic Gingerbread Cookies recipe for the kiddos to decorate. We used all kinds of cookie cutters. There was no method to my madness. I just wanted cookies cut and the kids to have a blast decorating. I will say, however, that these gingerbread cookies were pretty much perfection.
To start, you’ll mix together flour, salt, allspice, ground cloves, ground ginger, ground nutmeg, and cinnamon. And goodness does it smell wonderful!
Set aside the dry ingredients and in a separate bowl (if you have a mixer, use the mixing bowl) add some SPLENDA® Brown Sugar Blend with some butter and mix until it’s all fluffy. SPLENDA® Sweetener Products can be used pretty much anywhere regular sugar is used, including cooking and baking; and in this recipe it works beautifully! SPLENDA® No Calorie Sweetener enables you to experience the joy of sugar without all of the calories. Tip: by replacing three tablespoons of sugar per day with SPLENDA® No Calorie Sweetener, you can save almost 130 calories per day. This is easy when you consider swapping your coffee sugar, baked yum-yums, and daily cooking with SPLENDA®.
Next add in some beautiful molasses. It’s really so lovely, isn’t it? In all that thick and glossy caramel coloring?
Add in a couple of eggs and some vanilla and mix everything together.
Once all the wet ingredients are well combined, add in the flour mixture a little at a time. Don’t plop it all in at once. It’s a process that needs some time in between. Try diving the flour up into three or four batches at a time, ensuring the flour is mixed in well before adding the next batch.
The dough will form a gorgeous gingerbread brown color and will smell so amazing, you’ll want to eat the dough directly from the bowl. And maybe this happened with mine, but I will neither confirm nor deny that.
Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and store it in the fridge for a minimum of two hours.
After it’s nice and firm, you’re ready to cut out some shapes and bake! Roll out the dough using plastic wrap over the top and wax paper on the bottom (you may have to let it soften for several minutes to be pliable). This will keep the dough from sticking all over everything. You want to avoid using flour on gingerbread dough because it will make your cookies splotchy. This is a neat trick to help you get your dough nice and flat for cookie cutters.
Once you’ve got all your shapes cut and ready, place them in a 350 degree oven for about 10-15 minutes. If you like softer cookies, less time. If you like crispy cookies, more time.
Allow the cookies to cool completely before decorating. And yes, this means you’ll probably have to endure several inquiries from excited children about whether they’re ready or not. This is the part where you can channel Grandma Eilene.
Now it’s finally time to decorate! It gets messy, absolutely. Frosting (I used store bought – the cookies were homemade, cut yourself a break!) makes no sense. Candy adorns every surface. Kids eat far more confections than they should. But it’s a memory that will last a lifetime. I can attest to that.
For this batch, I was whipping them up quickly for Jacob’s co-workers and instead of covering them in sticky sweet frosting, I opted for a lovely little dusting of powedered sugar. I think it makes them look so fun and old fashioned, don’t you?
- 6 cups flour
- 1 teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon allspice
- ½ teaspoon ground cloves
- ½ teaspoon ground ginger
- ½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
- ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ¾ cups butter, softened
- 1-1/2 cups firmly packed SPLENDA® Brown Sugar Blend
- 1 cup Molasses
- 2 eggs
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- In a large bowl, combine flour, salt, allspice, cloves, ginger, nutmeg, and cinnamon. Set aside.
- In a mixer, beat together butter and SPLENDA® Brown Sugar Blend until fluffy.
- Add in molasses, mixing well.
- Add the eggs and vanilla and mix well.
- Add flour mixture in batches, beating until just combined after each addition.
- Wrap dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for minimum two hours.
- Remove the dough from fridge and preheat oven to 350F.
- When the dough is soft enough to roll, place between two sheets of plastic wrap to roll out flat.
- Cut out shapes and place on a baking sheet lined with parchment.
- Bake for 12-15 minutes.
- Remove and allow to cool completely before decorating.
Find additional recipes, tips, tricks and more at SweetSwaps.com.
I was selected for this opportunity as a member of Clever Girls and the content and opinions expressed here are all my own.
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