Homemaker Mondays- Gingerbread Cookies

I'm so happy to be participating in 11th Heaven's Homemaker Mondays! I've been following alone in my private family blog, but this is the first time I get to join her carnival! Yay!

This Monday, I wanted to share my Gingerbread Cookie recipe. This recipe is one that I've started making each year. This year I made it for my neighbors. They're great friends, and the night before I baked them, they helped Hubby stain our fence as well as fix our garage door. Someone decided that she was going to ram right into it with her big ol' SUV. In my defense, the garage door somehow didn't lift all the way up and when I tried driving in, the the top of my truck scraped underneath and started bending the door. Somehow these wonderful, wonderful boys fixed it and now you can't even see the dent! I don't know how they did it. My heroes. :)

The Southern Wife's Gingerbread Cookies

Ingredients:
1 cup butter or margarine, softened
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup water
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 cup molasses
5 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 tablespoons ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
Royal Icing (I'll include this recipe at the bottom)

Instructions:
Beat butter and sugar at medium speed with a mixer until fluffy.

Stir together 1/4 cup water and soda until dissolved; stir in molasses.

Combine flour and next 4 ingredients.

Add to butter mixture alternately with molasses mixture, beginning and ending with flour mixture.

Shape mixture into a ball; cover and chill 1-2 hours.

Roll to 1/4-inch thickness on a lightly floured surface.

Cut with festive holiday cookie cutters.

Place 2 inches apart on parchment paper-lined baking sheets.

Bake at 350° for 12 to 15 minutes.

Remove to wire racks to cool.

Spoon icing into a small heavy-duty zip-top plastic bag. Snip a tiny hole in 1 corner of bag; pipe around edges of cookies.

Royal Icing

Ingredients:
1 (16-ounce) package powdered sugar

3 tablespoons meringue powder*

6 to 8 tablespoons warm water

Instructions:

Beat all ingredients at low speed with a mixer until blended. Beat at high speed 4 minutes or until stiff peaks form. If needed, add water, 1/4 teaspoon at a time, until desired consistency.

*I found my meringue powder at Micheals and at Hobby Lobby. You'll want to use a coupon on this one as they can get pricey. But the good new is that it will last a long time.

Tips:
* I've found that using a bit less molasses made them taste a lot better. The first batch I made were very very strong tasting and I didn't really like it.

* Don't be stingy with the flour, y'all! This batter gets very sticky and is really hard to pin down sometimes. Flour will really help.

* Dip your cookie cutters into flour before cutting the dough. That helps keep them from sticking to the dough when you're pulling out the cutter.

* I reduced the cooking time by about a minute or so. This made them soft inside, which is how I like my cookies. This may not work on all ovens- ours happens to get really hot.

* Keep dough you're not working on in the freezer. You don't want it to get back to its sticky consistency. (DON'T skimp on the chilling time. In fact, you may want to add on to it and/or stick it in the freezer.)

* The icing does dry really fast, so I keep my different colors (use food coloring or food color paste) in Tupperware containers when I'm not using them.

Y'all, I'm not Paula Deen, so I hope you weren't expecting some cookie masterpieces! ;) This is all you're getting...some delicious cookies that look just a tad on the ugly side. I probably need more practice with the icing, huh? ;)