Learn how to make the best homemade Gingerbread Cookies with this easy, perfectly spiced recipe! Soft, chewy cookies decorated with a simple icing are fun to make and eat!
In a large bowl, mix together the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, ground ginger, ground allspice, ground clove, and salt. Set aside.
In the bowl of a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, add the butter and beat on medium speed for 1 minute until creamy. Add the brown sugar and molasses and continue to beat on medium until well-combined and creamy. Add the egg and vanilla extract and beat for at least 1 minute, scraping down the side of the bowl as needed.
With the mixer on low speed, slowly add the dry ingredients until everything is combined. Remove the dough from the mixer and separate into 2 balls. The dough will be sticky- that is okay. Place each ball onto a piece of plastic food wrap and press down to form a disk shape. Wrap each disk with the food wrap and place in the fridge for 2 hours or overnight.
Preheat oven to 350F and line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.
Remove one disk from the fridge and place on a floured surface. Flour a rolling pin and roll the disk out until it is 1/4 inch thick. Cut into shapes using a cookie cutter. Repeat with the remaining disk. Re-roll the scraps and repeat.
Bake in the oven for 9-10 minutes for 4 inch cookies. If your cookies are smaller, reduce the time accordingly. Allow cookies to cool for a few minutes on the baking sheet and then transfer to a cooling rack to cool completely. Once cooled, decorate using your favourite icing.
For the icing:
In the bowl of a stand mixer, add the meringue powder and warm water and whisk by hand to incorporate. Attach the bowl and whisk to the stand mixer and add the icing sugar. Whisk on low speed until the powdered sugar is mixed in and then increase the speed to medium and let it whisk for 7-8 minutes, scraping down the sides as needed. (If the icing is too thick or thin, add a little water or icing sugar to adjust to your liking).
Transfer to a piping bag or squeeze bottle with a small tip and decorate the cookies! Lay cookies out in a single layer to allow the icing to dry. Once dry, you can stack the cookies and place them in an air-tight container at room temperature for storage.
Note: Metric ingredient measurements are provided as a courtesy using a third-party calculator and are rounded to the nearest unit. The recipes provided on this site have not been tested with metric measurements and their accuracy cannot be verified.
The nutritional information provided is based on third-party calculations and is an estimate only. Accurate nutritional facts will vary based on the particular brands used, portion sizes, measurement accuracy and more.