Be sure to store them in an airtight container to keep them from drying out. If you love fresh-baked cookies, bake only a few at a time, and freeze the rest of the dough to be used later. Our dough can be frozen for up to a month. Hilary Meyer. Hilary Meyer November 08, Pin FB More. All rights reserved. But what's happening to the dough during that cooling period? Why does chilling your gingerbread dough ensure your cookies won't become shapeless blobs? King Arthur Baking notes that when you refrigerate your cookie dough, you are allowing the fats to solidify.
So, when you bake your cookies, the fat is going to remain solid longer, which in turn helps your gingerbread men and women keep their shapes. And to take the science of cooking a little further, they explain that the sugar also soaks up the liquid ingredients while it is chilling in the frig which also slows the spread.
Sold at fairs, these treats became beloved holiday traditions. Vanessa Greaves. By Vanessa Greaves Updated December 14, Pin FB Share. Credit: Kim. To make sticky gingerbread dough easier to work with, chill it for at least 1 hour before rolling it out.
Roll out the dough on a surface that's lightly dusted with flour or a mixture of flour and confectioners' sugar aka powdered sugar. If the dough isn't too sticky, you can roll it out between sheets of parchment paper. The light variety is most often used in baking, as it's the sweetest of all the types of molasses suitable for cooking. Dark can also be used, but it's going to give your cookies a less sweet taste. There's also fancy molasses, but that's more of a syrup than an ingredient.
You might see cooking molasses on the shelf, too, and that's a combination of fancy and what's called bootstrap molasses. Picking up a can of bootstrap molasses is going to ruin your entire project if you plan on eating your cookies, at least , and it's something you absolutely need to stay away from.
While light and dark come from the first and second boilings of sugar, bootstrap comes from the third. It's incredibly dark and very, very bitter, used more for savory cooking than sweet. It's great for things like baked beans, but gingerbread cookies? Not so much! If you're planning on making a batch of gingerbread cookies, you're probably planning on using cookie cutters to make some fun shapes. That's half the fun of gingerbread cookies after all.
But there's an extra step you shouldn't skip. If you want your cookies to come out so perfect the neighbors will be jealous and asking for more, chill your dough before rolling it out. This does a couple of different things, and the most noticeable one will be that it makes the dough much, much easier to roll out. It won't be nearly as sticky, and anyone who's tried to roll out cookie dough before knows that there's only so much that flour can do.
And speaking of, don't forget to use flour when you're rolling out your cookies! How long you want to chill your dough depends on how big your batch is.
Too cold is just as bad as not cold enough, so aim for about the consistency of Play-Doh. If you're making a lot of cookies, you might need to re-chill your dough halfway through, and if you cut out one batch then reuse the scraps, they might need to be re-chilled. It's crucial! Not all cookie cutters are created equal, and using the wrong ones can not only make the whole process more challenging, but it might make your cookies look less-than-ideal, too.
Since gingerbread dough is very firm, you're going to need a cookie cutter that can easily push through the dough and leave a clean cut.
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