I made these soft gingerbread cookies for a summertime birthday party instead of the usual decorated sugar cookies that I always enjoy making. They smelled so good and made it feel like the winter holidays.
I have noticed that some people prefer soft gingerbread cookies, while others prefer crispy gingerbread, so make sure to have both types within each batch. It is quite easy to make them soft or crispy depending on how thick or thin you roll the cookie dough and also how long they are baked for.
For the dough, I use this perfect gingerbread cookie recipe from Martha Stewart: Gingerbread Snowflakes
I use it as both my soft gingerbread cookie recipe and my crispy gingerbread cookie recipe.
For the icing, I used this Royal Icing Recipe.
I usually don't cut out large cookies such as the ones the recipe indicates so I usually get about 40 cookies instead of 16. The cookies I make tend to be in the 3 to 4 inch range.
Using the Martha Stewart gingerbread cookie recipe, I end up with 3 disks of dough so I bake each one separately. I roll out the first disk to 1/4 inch thickness, cut out the shapes and bake according the instructions from the recipe. For the second disk, I roll it out just a tad thinner, cut out the shapes and bake it for about 2 minutes less. These turn out a bit crispier for those who like crispy gingerbread cookies. For the third disk, I roll the dough out just a bit thicker than 1/4 inch and bake it for 2 minutes longer than the original batch. These will produce soft gingerbread cookies for those who prefer them to be soft.
That is my easy way of getting crispy gingerbread cookies, soft gingerbread cookies and perfect gingerbread cookies all from mixing up one batch of Martha Stewart's gingerbread cookie recipe. Everyone gets the gingerbread cookie they prefer too!
