Recipe: Lemon Gingerbread Sandwich Cookies
Sandwich Cookies made from leftover gingerbread after house building!
Welcome back! This year’s edition of gingerbread house making went much much better than last year’s. I’ve included some pictures to #humblebrag. (It’s still super simple, but I’m proud nonetheless.)
Baking and building a gingerbread house proved to be a great bonding activity for me and my friend <3. We “glued” (with royal icing) together the base pieces and let it dry completely before moving onto the roof, then letting that dry completely before moving onto the decorations. If you decide to make your own house, feel free to join us in deciding to play video games and day drink in the waiting time.
But, this post actually isn’t about the house, but rather the extra cookie dough! Last year, I made sandwich cookies with the extra dough (really as just a way to get the massive amounts of extra gingerbread out of my apartment - but they seemed to actually go over really well!). Here’s a review of my gingerbread recipe (details on my gingerbread house post). If you want to just jump straight to the cookie sandwich part, go to step 7 (where we start cutting circles).
Ready In: 2 Days (1 Hr, Chill Overnight, 30 Minutes for Baking and 2 Hrs for Construction) | Serves: 2 Houses (5” by 5” one story) or 40 sandwich cookies or a combination of both
Price: ~ $10
Ingredients:
Gingerbread House Ingredients
Basic Buttercream Ingredients
Gingerbread:
* 6 Cups Flour
* 1 Tsp Baking Powder
* 4 Tsp Ginger
* 4 Tsp Cinnamon
* 1 Tsp Nutmeg
* 1/2 Tsp Salt
* 3/4 Cup Butter (12 Tbsp)
* 1 and 1/2 Cup Brown Sugar
* 2 Tbsp Vanilla
* 2/3 Cup Molasses
* 2 Eggs
Lemon Buttercream (enough for 15-20 sandwich cookies):
* 1/2 Cup Butter (Softened)
* 1/2 Tsp Vanilla (Optional)
* 1/2 Tsp Lemon Extract
* 2 Cups Powdered Sugar
* 1 Tbsp Sour Cream (Optional - lessen powdered sugar by a couple tablespoons if you decide to opt out, just until you get the right consistancy)
Directions
Mix the dry and wet ingredients separately.
1) Mix Dry Ingredients, flour, baking powder, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt.
2) In a stand mixer (or via hand mixer), cream the butter, brown sugar, and vanilla until smooth. Once smooth, add eggs and molasses. Continue mixing until well mixed.
3) Slowly add the dry to the wet ingredients. Once about half of it is added in, you’ll need to knead (lol need to knead xD) the rest of the dry ingredients into the mixture either by hand, or using a stand mixer’s dough hook.
4) Once thoroughly mixed and kneaded, put the dough into a gallon zip lock bag (or multiple smaller bags) and chill in the fridge overnight.
——— THE NEXT DAY ————
5) Preheat your oven to 350. Line a sheet sheet (or two) with parchment paper and PAM spray the paper.
6) Separate the dough into at least two chunks and roll one out via rolling pin until it is about a quarter inch thick, or as I like to think of it - half a finger high. If you have problems with the dough being to hard, let it sit on the counter for 15 minutes and try again - repeat until you can roll the dough (keeping in mind that you’ll still need to use some force!). If you have problems with the dough sticking, flour your surface, your dough, and your pin.
7) It’s time to cut your circles. I’d recommend using a cookie cutter - or if you’re cheap like me and don’t have one, use a glass with a circular top. I used an “Old Spaghetti Factory” glass to make my cookies.
My friend was the cookie cutting queen :).
Baking the Gingerbread
8) Carefully place your cut dough on your cookie sheet and bake for 8-10 minutes. Once baked, set on a cooling rack.
9) Cool completely. While cooling, whip up your butter cream. Cream the butter, lemon extract, and vanilla. Slowly sift the sugar into the mixture until you get to the consistency you want. Add sour cream at the end if you want a more robust tart flavor.
10) Once the bread has cooled and the buttercream is made, pipe the buttercream between cookies to make little delicious sandwiches in addition to your gingerbread house. <3 Always great not to waste food!
