Gingerbread Cookies with Cream Cheese Icing

Nothing rings in the holidays more to me than Christmas trees and gingerbread! Oh the smells are wonderfully terrific. For me gingerbread is the quintessential Christmas cookie that has to be made every year. I have made many a different gingerbread but had never found “the one”. I wanted a thick, chewy cookie that had a well rounded flavour full of the spices that fill your house with that wondrous aroma, I wanted a cookie that tasted as good as it smelled! Many of the recipes I had tried in the past were either too crispy and did not stand the test of time or they fell flat in the flavour department. Since many of the recipes for gingerbread make a ton of cookies I would end up trying a new one each year, as my family can only eat so many cookies and I never want to throw anything out unless it is truly horrible. My search ended last year when I found the following recipe for chewy gingerbread cookies. Oh my, oh my, are these the best gingerbread I have ever found! They also pair quite nicely with cream cheese icing (I think this may be becoming my theme, but what can I say – I love cheese of all kinds!!!) I got the stamp of approval from Emma who loves these cookies and says that she doesn’t even like gingerbread that much. This year she was insisting that we make them, the sooner the better. So that is what we did. We had a great time cutting them out and figuring out how to decorate them with the cream cheese frosting without them looking too juvenile (didn’t happen) but in the end isn’t that what Christmas is all about? Getting together with loved ones to have fun and a great laugh! I think we did a great job juggling our ever busier babies and not eating all of the cookies before sharing them with others. Hey, we even managed to get through it with Oliver knocking over cups of tea and Penelope chewing on my iPhone, I knew daddy would not be too happy if he found out about me putting the phone within her reach as I am already on my second iPhone and I only got it 2 months ago, yikes!

I hope you enjoy them as much as we do, happy baking!

Stocking update: My mom and I have finished 3, yippee!!! Only 4 more to go but my mom and I are at the bottom of the list so we will see what gets done…

MOM-O-METER: 5 out of 5
The dough came together really easy and there aren’t that many ingredients. The rolling and the resting time are something that just come with a gingerbread cookie and it is a fun holiday tradition to get together with family and friends for cookie decorating. We can’t wait til our little ones can partake in all the fun!

Gingerbread Cookies with Cream Cheese Icing
Adapted from No Special Effects

3 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon cinnamon
1 tablespoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
3/4 cup unsalted butter, cut into small pieces and slightly softened
3/4 cup molasses (I would use a mild molasses so that the spices don’t become overshadowed, unless you love a dark molasses then by all means use it!)
2 tablespoons whole milk (I used one tablespoon of 1% milk and 1 tablespoon of cream)

First mix together the molasses and the milk and set aside. In a large bowl sift together the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger and cloves. Then stir the brown sugar into the flour mixture. Using a pastry blender (or two forks) cut the butter into the flour mixture until it resembles very fine meal. Pour the molasses mixture in a third at a time, stirring well after each addition. The dough should end up looking like coffee ice cream. (Alternately you can mix the dough in a stand mixer with a paddle attachment).

Divide the dough in two and place one half on a rectangle of parchment paper. Place another piece of parchment on top and pat the dough into a rough rectangle. Then using a rolling pin roll the dough to a 1/4 inch thickness (the original recipe said that you can place two magazines on either end of the rolling pin to get the right thickness, neat trick!). Repeat with the other half of the dough. When the dough is rolled out stack the pieces onto a cookie sheet and refrigerate for 2 hours or overnight.

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper. Remove the dough from the fridge and gently peel off both of the pieces of parchment paper. Cut the dough into whatever shapes you like and place on baking sheet, spacing the cookies at least an inch apart. Bake the cookies for 8 minutes if they are 3 inch cookies and from 8-11 minutes if they are 5 inch cookies. Rotate the pan half way through the cooking. Repeat with the remaining dough. Will make roughly 2 dozen 3 inch cookies.

Cream Cheese Icing

1/2 cup butter, softened
1 250g (8 ounce) package of cream cheese, softened
A little less than 1 500g bag of icing sugar (about a pound)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Cream together the butter and cream cheese until smooth and fluffy, add the vanilla and sugar and beat until well combined. Sometimes I start with less sugar and add more according to how sweet I want the icing. On the tree cookies pictured above I took some of the icing and turned it into a glaze by adding a little bit of milk until I got my desired consistency, I then dipped the top of the cookies into it and lifted them out pulling the trunk up first to create the effect.

Have fun decorating!

Pumpkin Cupcakes with Vanilla Cream Cheese Frosting

I know the main ingredients of these cupcakes are not entirely dissimilar to our last posting – but there really is no resisting the combination of pumpkin and cream cheese at this time of year! Maressa made these cupcakes for a Halloween party a few years ago and they were a smash success. It was one of those times where Emma copied her the next day and then brought them in to work.  Nothing like stealing a good recipe. Today we decided to make them together for a Halloween party we are going to tomorrow, but when we went back to get the recipe for it from Martha Stewart it was gone! Well, it turns out that it is not exactly gone – but the recipe is hard to find and bears the same name as another recipe that is both easier to make, and less good.

The thing about these cupcakes is they do take some preparation: but are totally worth the forethought. You will need to grate your own pumpkin- we generally just cut a cooking pumpkin in two and put half in the oven to mash up with a fork once cooked and meanwhile peel and grate the other half in a food processor. Depending on the size of your pumpkin, this may leave you with far more than you need for this recipe. With our babies approaching food-eating age, we are only too happy to have the extra puree in the freezer.  The grated pumpkin also freezes well should you wish to repeat this recipe later on in the season. And you will. They are that good.

The recipe calls for mixing all ingredients in a food processor – if you double the batch like we often do this is prohibitive and so you may just want to put it all together in a large bowl and be sure to mix thoroughly. Additionally, the food processor really does puree the grated pumpkin a bit too much – we think it is nice to have the larger pieces of pumpkin in the finished product – so you may want to consider mixing the ingredients by hand even for a single batch.

We are no Martha Stewart – so there was no way that we were going to be making our own marzipan pumpkins for people to coo over and then throw in the trash! We put little pumpkin jujubes on top – but really any Halloween based treat would be good. In fact, these are great with or without icing – you could even call them “muffins“ and serve them for breakfast…or at least I sometimes do.

Mom-O-Meter : 3  (but make em anyway – they are worth it!!)

For the prepared mom, these are a snap to make. You simply need grated pumpkin and pumpkin puree ready to go in the freezer. Most of us normal, not-prepared people do not  have this – so they do require some forethought – we might suggest doing the grating and cooking of puree the night before.  Also, make sure that your spice drawer is fully stocked –as you will need all the pumpkin pie spices you would usually use for Thanksgiving pies.

Pumpkin Cupcakes – Adapted from Martha Stewart`s Pumpkin Patch Cupcakes

Cupcakes

21/2 cups grated pie pumpkin
1/2 cup pumpkin puree
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/4 cups sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
Pinch of ground cloves
3/4 cup vegetable oil
4 large eggs

Frosting

8 ounces (usually 1 package) cream cheese
½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
2 cups sifted icing sugar (adjust to taste)
1 ½ – 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract (adjust to taste)

1. Preheat oven to 350 and line muffin pan with paper liners. Whisk together dry ingredients in a bowl or food processor (flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and cloves). Add oil and eggs – beat until smooth and then add the two types of pumpkin. Spoon 1/3 of a cup into each cupcake cup and cook for approximately 23 minutes or until a tester comes out clean.

2. Beat cream cheese in/with electric mixer on medium until smooth, then add butter and continue beating. Turn mixer to low and add icing sugar gradually, followed by vanilla.