The BEST Gingerbread Cookie Recipe - The Squeaky Mixer (2024)

FAQs

What makes gingerbread cookies hard or soft? ›

Molasses and honey hardens gingerbread, but as the sugar absorbs moisture, it will get softer.” Cookbook author and ”Great American Baking Show” winner Vallery Lomas likes a gingerbread cookie that's packed with flavor. “I want to taste a lot of the spices ― especially ginger,” she said.

The longer you bake the gingerbread, the harder and browner it will get. I like to overbake mine a little.

The easiest way to soften cookies with bread is to place the cookies in an airtight container with a slice of bread and leave them for a few hours. The bread will release moisture and help to rehydrate the cookies, making them soft and chewy once again.

Too much flour will make your cookies crumbly and dry. If your dough is too crumbly: mix in 1 tbsp of milk until the dough is soft and pliable again. Be sure to chill your dough for at least 3 hours. This will help the flavor of the dough and consistency so it doesn't spread when baking.

These three ingredients—butter, egg, and molasses—are the most common ingredients that will cause your gingerbread cookies to crack when left out or not used properly. Still, they are not the only ingredients that can cause this problem to happen. Make sure to choose a good recipe when making your gingerbread cookies.

Doubling up on molasses softened the cookies significantly.

Once in the oven, the gingerbread people started to swell and puff up around the edges. Molasses is also extremely dark in color, so this batch of cookies turned out to be a deep brown.

“Cornstarch is a game changer for cookie baking,” confirms Brian Hart Hoffman, editor in chief of Bake from Scratch. “You can count on [it for] a softer and more tender crumb.”

Different types of sugars affect the texture because they absorb different amounts of water. Remember moisture is the key! White sugar creates crispier cookies and brown sugar creates chewier cookies.

Comments for gingerbread for houses getting too soft

My suggestion would be to bake them again in a low temperature oven to dry them out. I would start at 250 or 275 F. for about 40 min. Remember, when it cools it hardens.

A 1:4 ratio of butter to flour makes the gingerbread strong. Corn syrup keeps freshly baked gingerbread pliable and soft, so it's easy to cut while warm.

Can you overmix gingerbread? ›

Over mixing the dough can lead to a tough textured cookie that doesn't hold its shape as well. Mix on low speed each time while slowly scraping down the sides of the bowl mixing just until everything is combined.

Should gingerbread cookies be hard or soft? Soft gingerbread biscuits are ideal. They ought to be flexible. However, they should still be somewhat elastic, and if you hold them too firmly because you're so excited to eat them, you might even be able to leave your fingerprints on the cookie!

Add more flour if the dough is wet. Place the dough in a sealable container or zip-top bag in a cool place for up to 2 hours.

Chilling it for at least two hours or overnight gives the ingredients a chance to absorb one another, making it a whole lot easier to roll out the dough without it cracking. Follow this tip: Let the dough chill in the refrigerator, well-wrapped, for at least two hours or overnight before rolling it out.

Dough should be soft (not dry or crumbly) but not sticky. If sticky, add a few tablespoons of flour until desired consistency is achieved.

Texturally, gingerbread cookies are usually a bit thinner and less soft (depending on the recipe). One of the more obvious differences here is that gingerbread cookies are typically rolled out and cut into shapes and iced while molasses cookies are rolled in sparkling sugar.

Fear that gingerbread men could be agents of the occult spread to the continent and in 1607 the magistrates of Delft in the Netherlands made it illegal to either bake or eat the biscuits.

So how do you know that they're done? Here's how to tell if gingerbread cookies are done: They'll be firmly set. They'll be a lovely medium-brown color.

Molasses is the essential ingredient in gingerbread cookies, providing the chewy texture and almost burnt sugar flavor that characterizes the treat.

Too much butter makes cookies turn out just as you'd expect: very buttery. This batch of cookies was cakey in the middle, but also airy throughout, with crispy edges. They were yellow and slightly puffy in the middle, and brown and super thin around the perimeter.

How do you firm up gingerbread dough? ›

Wrap in plastic and refrigerate until firm. Or, if you plan to bake cookies immediately after making the dough, roll the dough between two pieces of parchment paper until 1/4 inch thick. Refrigerate about 15 minutes until firm.

As Levy Beranbaum writes in The Baking Bible, replacing a little bit of the flour in the dough with cornstarch results in “a more delicate cookie that is also easier to pipe or push through a cookie press.” Adding cornstarch helps tenderize tough gluten, contributing to a softer cookie dough with a finer crumb after ...

My suggestion is to put it back into the oven for up to 10 minutes. The temp of the oven should be around 325 degrees.

The ingredients you use and how you shape your cookies both play an important role in whether your cookies turn out crispy or chewy. The type of flour and sugar you use, if your cookie dough contains eggs, and whether you use melted or softened butter all factor into the crispy-chewy equation, too.

If your cookies consistently come out flat, you may have selected the wrong baking temperature. If you bake cookies using too much heat, the fats in the dough begin to melt before the other ingredients can cook together and form your cookie's rise.