Gingerbread Boys

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Soft gingerbread boys with classic icing.

...and yes, these are gingerbread boys, not gingerbread men. 

I mean no disrespect to the gingerbread men out there, but the gingerbread boys are superior. If you want to argue, you'll have to take it up with my great grandmother, whose recipe this is. I grew up eating these cookies every December. My mom would make dozens upon dozens and ship them out to friends and family members near and far. They are especially delicious with coffee on a cold December morning. 


These warming cookies are a holiday classic, and they're very forgiving and easy to make. I've made many ingredient swaps with these and they taste great every time. The only thing I will say is that they're more difficult to roll if they're made without the traditional flour and brown sugar. If you make any swaps, I suggest using 2 pieces of wax paper to roll them out, and employing a metal spatula to scrape them off the wax paper and onto the cookie sheet. 



The best part of these cookies is smothering them with colorful sprinkles. This is a very non traditional (but SOO easy) way of decorating them, as they're usually neat and tidy with the powdered sugar glaze or carefully piped with various colored royal icing designs. To be honest, royal icing is just too time consuming. And, if you're like me, around the holidays the last thing you need is something that takes over your entire kitchen and requires 5 separate bowls and multiple washes of your reusable piping bag in order to complete. I'd rather make more cookies!

Cookie Ingredients: 
  • 1/3 cup softened butter
  • 1 1/2 cup molasses
  • 1 cup brown sugar
  • 1/2 cup cold water
  • 6 cups flour
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp allspice
  • 1 tsp ginger
  • 1 tsp cloves
  • 1 tsp cinnamon
  • 1 tsp dissolved baking soda in 3 tbsp cold water
Icing Ingredients: 
  • 2 cups powdered sugar
  • 1/4 cup cream cheese
  • 2-4 tbsp water
  • 1 tsp vanilla 
  • 1/2 tsp lemon juice
Cookie Method: 
  1. Beat butter, molasses, and brown sugar until well combined. 
  2. Add cold water until combined. 
  3. Add dissolved baking soda / water mixture and combine.
  4. Sift flour, salt, and spices together, and mix into a dough. 
  5. Divide dough in half, and wrap in wax paper to refrigerate for 2 hours. 
  6. Preheat oven to 350ºF. 
  7. Roll dough on well floured surface to 1/4 inch thickness.
  8. Cut out cookies and bake on sheet lined with parchment paper for 15-18 minutes. 
  9. Let cool on racks before icing.
Icing Method: 
  1. Combine ingredients in a bowl. 
  2. Beat together until smooth and silky. 
  3. Icing should be translucent but thick enough to coat a spatula.
  4. Ice cookies and allow icing to dry before storing.

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