A soft gingerbread cookie with a topping of brown butter frosting perfect for the holiday season!
Cookie baking for the holiday season each year for me includes dozens of chocolate chip based cookies, cut-out sugar cookies decorated with festive royal icings, and spicy ginger and cinnamon flavored cookies. This Gingerbread cookie recipe today is the latter of the those favorite seasonal cookies, a soft molasses based cookie rolled in sugar, baked, and then topped with browned butter frosting, a most delectable icing that adds the perfect flavor to these not too sweet cookies.
This easy Gingerbread Cookie recipe begins with a butter and brown sugar base, is sweetened further with molasses, and then flavored with cinnamon, ginger, vanilla and nutmeg. A bit of dutch cocoa intensifies the flavors and helps bake the cookie a bit darker for a wonderful cookie that is delicious out of the oven and even better with the addition of the browned butter icing.
I topped the cookies with a sprinkling of mini gingerbread men that I found shopping on Amazon, just search for gingerbread sprinkles to locate some of your own. You don’t have to include the sprinkles of course, but I highly recommend the browned butter frosting- it’s soooo good!
Happy Holidays and Happy Baking!
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- COOKIES:
- 4 ounces butter (1/2 cup) or 1 stick
- 3¾ ounces brown sugar (1/2 cup)
- 1 whole egg
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla
- 3 ounces molasses (1/4 cup) *I use Grandmas molasses
- 1 Tablespoon dutch cocoa
- 6¾ ounces unbleached flour (1½ cup) * I use King Arthur all purpose
- ¾ teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon ginger
- ½ teaspoon cinnamon
- ⅛ teaspoon nutmeg
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- *(additional ½ cup sugar to roll cookies in prior to baking)
- BROWNED BUTTER FROSTING
- 4 ounces butter ( ½ cup or one stick)
- 12 ounces powdered sugar (3 cups)
- 6 Tablespoon milk or light cream
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla
- Cream softened butter and brown sugar.
- Add egg and vanilla and beat until combined.
- Mix in molasses, dough may be a bit curdled looking, it's ok.
- Mix in dry ingredients including flour, cocoa, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg.
- Chill dough 30 minutes. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- Scoop dough using an ice cream scoop or cookie scoop or use approximately 2 Tablespoons.
- Roll dough balls in white sugar and place on silpat baking sheet or cookie sheet lined with parchment paper or spray baking sheet lightly with a cooking spray.
- Bake 350 degrees for 14 minutes
- Cool cookies then frost with browned butter icing. Top with sprinkles as desired.
- FROSTING INSTRUCTIONS:
- Using a small saucepan, cook butter on medium low heat for 3 to 5 minutes until it starts to brown. The melted butter will foam and bubble, watch carefully for the browning on the bottom to occur.
- Then remove from heat, cool for about 5 minutes and pour over confectioner's sugar in a mixing bowl. Add milk and vanilla and beat until spreading consistency. Add more or less milk depending on how thick you want your frosting.
Milk…doesn’t the milk in the frosting spoil if left at room temperature?
The small amount of milk used in the frosting is ok at room temperature for a couple of days. The sugar stabilizes the milk. You can refrigerate the cookies though, or freeze in closed container if you think the cookies will be around longer than 2 days.
Does the frosting harden up on the cookies?
Hi Kimberly, the buttercream frosting is thick and will set up some, but does not harden. Add more powdered sugar or less liquid to firm the frosting somewhat.