Gingerbread is associated with Christmas and the winter holidays but there is nothing that says you can’t make it any time of year. I don’t know about you but I love the spices that go into a good gingerbread; ginger, cinnamon, cloves. I don’t see any reason not to enjoy it whenever you want. The final challenge for the Great British Bake Off Bakealong, if you cannot guess by now, was gingerbread cut out cookies. The requirement was to submit 12 decorated ginger biscuits.

Even though we are indeed in the midst of the holiday season I went another way with my cookies. When I opened my tin of cookie cutters I found that I had a LOT of cat cutters. I also had a fish cutter. Why? I am totally clueless as to why I might have ever purchased a trout cookie cutter. But it did give me an idea for my challenge….

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…Harry and Trout cookies! If you follow my Instagram account you are well acquainted with Harry and Trout. If you don’t, Harry is my tuxedo cat and Trout is his favorite toy. They are pretty much inseparable.

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Table of Contents

Gingerbread Cut Out Cookies

For the cookies:

3 cups all purpose flour
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 TBS ground cinnamon
1 TBS ground ginger
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp salt
12 TBS unsalted butter, melted
3/4 cup molasses
2 TBS milk

For the Icing

2 large egg whites
2 2/3 cups confectioner’s sugar
water

To color the Icing

matcha tea
butterfly tea powder
dried dragonfruit powder

bits of chocolate for Trout eyes

Make the Cookie dough

Add the flour, sugar, cinnamon, ginger, salt, baking soda and cloves to a food processor with the metal blade.
Whir for about 20 seconds until well mixed.
Add the melted butter. molasses and milk.
Pulse for 20 seconds until the dough comes together and starts to form a ball.
Carefully remove the dough from the processor bowl to the counter – dust with a small amount of flour if necessary – and knead until the dough is smooth.

Divide the dough in half, flatten into a disc and wrap in wax paper or plastic and refrigerate for at least an hour or up to overnight.
Preheat oven to 350°
Line two rimmed baking sheets with parchment.
Using one disc at a time, roll the dough to about 1/4″ thick.

Choose your cookie cutters and cut out as many cookies as you can. Save the scraps to re-roll
Carefully move the cookies to the prepared sheets and bake in the preheated oven for 11 minutes, rotating the trays halfway through baking.

Remove the cookies to a wire rack to cool.
Repeat with any remaining cookies.
Let cool completely.

Make the Icing

Add the egg whites and sugar to a bowl (either a stand mixer or you can use a hand mixer)
Start on low and as it comes together increase the speed and beat until fluffy and smooth.
Divide the icing into bowls for the number of colors you will need.
If you choose to color with natural colorants as I do add matcha tea in small increments until you get the color green you seek. Add butterfly pea tea powder to achieve blue and dried dragonfruit powder will give you pink.

*Note – I hate royal icing in the worst way so I add a healthy spoonful of lemon juice powder to help with the sweetness. I taste it and if it needs a bit more tart I add a little more. This is, of course optional.

Decorate the cookies

Add the different colors to piping bags with a writing tip #1
Outline the areas you want to flood with each color on each cookie
Then take the leftover frosting and thin it out with milk or water to just thin enough to be pourable.
Using a spoon for the larger areas, or a toothpick for the smaller areas, fill in the places you have outlined with icing. The toothpick will also help you fill in to the boundary.
Add a tiny bit of chocolate for a trout eye

“Paint” on triangles for the cat ears and add a dot for the cat nose

How Were the Gingerbread Cut Out Cookies?

This is a really good recipe if you ask me. Rich molasses flavor with lots of spicy ginger, cinnamon and clove spiciness. It is an adult cookie though, I don’t think young kids will like the spice. I could be wrong…it’s been a long time since I was a kid. heh

No matter what it’s a cookie that keeps for a while and the flavor gets better as it sits. I was really happy with how cute the Harry and Trout cookies came out. My piping skills are not super advanced and I think they ended up looking pretty darn OK.

While this was the last challenge in the Great British Bake Off Bakealong I still have two recipes to share. I will get them up before the year ends. If you would like to see what some of the other participants in the fun made you can check out the Bakealong Wrap Up Post on Little House Big Alaska. I thoroughly enjoyed participating I think one of my favorite recipes was the Jaffa Cakes. I’d never made them before and they were a delightful little cookie cake.