Recipe of the Month
Gingerbread Snowflakes
Ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder
1 ½ teaspoons baking soda
½ teaspoon fine salt
¼ teaspoon ground cloves
⅛ teaspoon ground black pepper (Optional)
⅛ teaspoon cayenne pepper (Optional)
12 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
¼ cup molasses
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
1c powdered sugar
4 tsp water
Directions:
· Gather all the ingredients.
· Whisk 2 cups plus 2 tablespoons flour, cocoa powder, ground ginger, cinnamon, baking soda, salt, cloves, black pepper, and cayenne together in a large bowl until thoroughly mixed.
· Cream together butter and sugar in a separate bowl with an electric mixer until pale yellow and creamy, about 2 minutes. Add molasses, vanilla, and egg. Whisk mixture until well blended. Add flour mixture to butter mixture and stir just until the flour disappears.
· Spread out a piece of plastic wrap on the counter and set dough on top. Wrap dough with plastic wrap while shaping it into a rectangle approximately 1-inch high by 4 to 5 inches wide. Refrigerate until dough is cold and firm, about 1 hour.
· Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Line a baking sheet with a Silpat mat.
· After the dough has chilled, slice across the block into 14 or 15 pieces about 3/8 inch thick. Each slice is then cut in half, and each half into 3 strips lengthwise.
· Use 3 strips of the dough to form the 6-pointed star as shown and place onto the prepared baking sheet with space in between as they spread out.
· Bake in the preheated oven for about 12 minutes if you like the cookies to be chewy, or 15 minutes for crispy cookies. Remove from the oven and wait for 5 minutes before carefully transferring cookies to a wire rack. Allow to cool completely, about 30 minutes.
· Mix together the powdered sugar and water until a ribbon is formed. Transfer the icing into a piping bag with a small round tip. Pipe snowflake designs onto the cooled cookies.