Christmas time in Australia is no where near like the Christmas in the Northern Hemisphere. In this country we tend to be battling scorching heat, frightening bushfires, and often intense summer storms that wreak havoc through our suburbs. Our Christmas celebrations feature beautiful summer fruit, roasts and cold beers. It’s a bit different, but it is just what we do.
Every year I love making a big batch of gingerbread to celebrate the holiday season and a lot of trial and error has led to one epic gingerbread recipe. Most years I commit to making a gingerbread house too. In 2020 considering the COVID-19 restrictions in Sydney, we made the decision not to make one and instead share some cookies with the neighbours. In 2021, our family from Canada was celebrating with us and we build a gingerbread house together! It was such a wonderful activity and a memory we are going to cherish for a very long time.
My secret ingredient
Most people have their favourite gingerbread recipe, and one that they think is absolutely the best.
I say exactly the same thing about my recipe.
This gingerbread is particularly special for my secret ingredient – really good quality instant coffee. I know there will be plenty of coffee lovers yelling right now claiming that good quality instant coffee doesn’t exist. Trust me, buy the fancy brand and see the difference it makes in this recipe. The coffee lends a wonderful richness to the recipe and compliments the spice blend too. It’s a match made in heaven.
Can I use Golden Syrup?
The most important ingredient in the gingerbread recipe, is definitely the treacle/molasses. Many recipes use golden syrup, but just trust me the result with a deep smokey treacle is miles better. You can find both at your local major supermarket and also at artisanal grocers. The treacle/molasses also makes the dough incredibly sticky! Don’t be afraid by this – it’ll yield a beautifully textured cookie with a little bit of crunch and plenty of chewiness once broken through.
How to make the BEST Gingerbread Cookies
Okay the process here is quite simple.
Firstly, make sure your egg and butter is at room temperature. Super important for this recipe, particular because temperature is a big factor to getting perfect gingerbread. Ultimately nailing the texture of the batter/dough is extremely important so room temperature is the only way to go.
Normally I think you can get away with slightly cooled eggs or butter in a basic cookie or cake recipe – a lot of these recipes are quite forgiving and flexible. The worst thing that can happen is a slightly different looking result. In this recipe, the temperature is FAR more important. This gingerbread recipe needs to be followed right and carefully.
Combine dry ingredients
Start by combining the flour, baking soda and spices together in a bowl. Give this mixture a good whisk to break up all the lumps or alternatively sift all of the ingredients into the bowl – you want to make sure you don’t have big lumps of flour or the spices. This is quite important especially when using cinnamon as this tends to form lumps that do not mix well with moisture.
Start beating the butter
Beat the butter well in a stand mixer for 2 minutes until it becomes light and fluffy. This helps to aerate the batter overall and will help incorporate the sugar smoothly. A super important step! Grab a timer and beat away.
Add the sugar and treacle
Beat the sugar and treacle into the butter. Again, this needs to be done for a couple of minutes. This steps helps to dissolve the sugar and break down the thick and sticky treacle to make a homogenous mixture. By beating the ingredients well you also add plenty of volume to create really delicate cookies.
Add the egg and vanilla
Finally it’s time to beat in the egg and vanilla. At this point there won’t be additional aeration of the wet ingredients, but instead we are adding richness. The egg in this recipe gives us a beautifully rich and creamier cookie. This will need another 2 minutes to
Add the dry ingredients
This is where we move to the folding setting on the stand mixer. Remember to only add the dry ingredients one scoop at a time (roughly 1/4 cup) and fold until just combined, then add the next scoop. Continue this right until the flour is fully combined. Make sure you do not mix the dough further than that otherwise the cookies will become tough.
Chilling the dough
The dough will be really sticky, so ensure you flour your hands periodically to help you work the dough. Start by halving the dough and creating 2 discs. Wrap these in cling film and set these in the fridge to chill for at least 4 hours.
Yes you read that correctly.
4 whole hours.
We want the dough to be chilled all the way through before using it. You can also leave it overnight.
Shaping the cookies
Once you are ready to start rolling and shaping, remove the discs from the fridge. Flour your workbench and your hands and start gently kneading the dough until it’s pliable enough to roll with a rolling pin. Make sure you add more flour to the dough if it gets sticky. The humidity and dryness of your kitchen will make a huge difference to how much flour you will actually need.
Roll the dough out to be about half a centimeter thick and use cookie cutters to cut out shapes. The set I use is particularly old which I had purchased from an Australian discount variety store, Kmart. You can find some great quality shapes at Amazon or even Target as well.
Once the cookies are shaped, lay them out on a lined baking tray and set the tray itself in the freezer for at least 20 minutes. In the meantime pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius.
Baking the cookies
Once the oven is ready and the cookies have chilled for at least 20 minutes, pop the baking tray into the oven on the middle rack. Bake the cookies for 10 minutes until beautifully browned. For a crispy and crunchy cookie, bake for 12 minutes. For a chewier cookie, bake for 8-9 minutes.
After they have finished baking, remove from the oven and set aside. Cool them on a cooling rack to get a little crispy on the base.
Decorate the cookies
Now for the fun part! You can use royal icing for more intricate designs, but some good melted white chocolate also works a charm! Experiment with different icing options and see what works best for you
Here’s the recipe
Gingerbread Cookies
Equipment
- Oven
- baking tray
- Stand Mixer
- Spatula
- Baking paper
Ingredients
- 430 g plain flour 3½ cups
- 145 g unsalted butter ⅔ cup; at room temperature
- 150 g packed brown sugar ¾ cup
- ⅔ cup treacle or molasses
- 1 egg at room temperature
- 1 tsp vanilla bean paste
- 1 tsp baking soda
- ½ tsp salt
- 1 tbsp. ground ginger
- 1 tbsp. ground cinnamon
- ½ tsp ground all spice
- ½ tsp ground cloves
- 1½ tsp strong instant coffee
- plain flour for kneading
Instructions
- In a bowl whisk together the flour, soda, ground all spice, ginger, cinnamon, clove, coffee and salt until there are no lumps
- In a mixing bowl, beat the softened butter for roughly a minute until creamy and fluffy using a stand mixer
- Add the treacle and brown sugar and beat for roughly 2 minutes until rich and creamy
- Add the egg and vanilla and beat again for 2 minutes. The mixture should start to become a little lighter and a bit bouncy
- Slowly mix the dry ingredients with the wet ingredients, just using one scoop at a time
- Once the flour has been mixed completely in, use your hands to gently knead the dough for roughly 5 minutes adding in some flour if the dough is sticking too much. The treacle does make this dough pretty sticky so don't add too much flour – it's okay to have a lot of moisture!
- Split the dough into 2 discs and cover each with cling film. Refrigerate these for at least 2 hours, or up to 8 hours
- Pre heat the oven to 180° Celsius (conventional) or 160° Celsius (fan forced) and line some baking trays with baking paper
- Knead the dough lightly and use some of the self raising flour to prepare the dough for rolling. Sprinkle some of the self raising flour over the surface and roll out the disc to at least a thickness of ¼ of an inch, or ¾ of a cm. Use cookie cutters to cut out your desired shapes
- Place the cut out shapes on the baking paper and place in the oven. Bake these for 9-12 minutes, rotating the trays half way through baking. Depending on the humidity of the day, your oven, and the thickness of the dough the baking time will vary so pay attention to them and check the cookies at the 9 minute mark. If you prefer a crispy gingerbread cookie, bake them for at least 11 minutes
- Serve these cookies after resting them for at least 10 minutes. Some serving ideas include with some hot chocolate or coffee laced with some baileys or Frangelico. Alternatively use the cookies as an additional to a trifle recipe or even cheesecake!
- If decorating the cookies, you can use some royal icing in a piping bag to decorate them along with some decorative gems. I like drizzling over white chocolate and adding some gems to the trees and adding some eyes with buttons for the gingerbread men
