Please post a good gingerbread cookie recipe. I am planing to use cookie cutters with it and I am afraid that the one I have will crumble when rolled. Thanks for your help!!!!!

Rose’s recipe can be found in “Rose’s Christmas Cookies”, it is excellent and rolls/cuts nicely.

I second Julie’s recommendation. Rose’s recipe is the only one I use. It is delicious and easy to work with, for a roll-out dough.

I’m sorry that I do not have the book. I have the three bibles, pies, bread and cakes. I think I should get the Cookie book also. Thanks for your reply.

The Cookie book (Rose’s Christmas Cookies) is great! Mine gets a lot of use this time of year.

I love this recipe from an old Cook’s Illustrated. Very easy to make. I’ve started adding 1/2 tsp. fresh, finely ground black pepper. It sounds weird but it’s the spiciest gingerbread I’ve ever had. (I have not tried Rose’s recipe, though.)

My gingerbread recipe calls for ground pepper too (a Martha Stewart recipe from years ago).  It’s very good and you don’t taste the pepper at all.

I also think Maida Heatter has one with dry mustard in it. I love her recipes, but I guess that is a bridge too far for me! 

Thread from the past:
I’ve been looking for a good chewy recipe, I am working on making a batch tonight using manggy’s recipe!  I have a partial recipe that uses eggs in it, quite different from http://manggy.blogspot.com/2007/11/thick-and-chewy-gingerbread-cookies.html , but it just isn’t right and makes a gingersnap kind of cookie that is just a bit too firm, even when it is rolled out at 1/4”, I’ll also try the ground pepper!

Wen Chocolates here in Denver makes the absolute best gingerbread cookies that I’ve ever had—large squares that are thick, soft, chewy, and spicy. Fresh ginger and Chinese Five Spice Powder is used. I’ve been trying to get the owner, Chef Will Poole, to cough up the recipe for years, but so far nothing! :-D

Talk about disaster!  I made the batter (Maggy recipe above), and thought it was a little too sticky, but it calls for rolling between two sheets of parchment and refrigerating before cutting out the shapes, so I followed the directions…  It doesn’t take long for the 6mm (1/4”) thick frozen dough to get back to a very pliable, sticky dough, so I am rushing to get as many gingerbread men and women cut out and onto a parchment paper (PP) on an airbake sheet as quickly as I can.  The last few are starting to stick to everything, I’m thinking about dusting them with flour or cornstarch so I can handle them as I rush to get them on the sheets.  I get the last few on the bake sheet (and re-shape a few), the phone is ringing, and the oven alarm is telling me it’s ready and the stone is up to temp, so I open the oven door and start to throw this first sheet in, when I burn just the outside edge of my hand on the open oven door, which makes me reflexively jerk back, which makes me release my finger grip on the PP, which (at that angle) makes me dump ALL OF THE COOKIES on the PP INTO THE PRE-HEATED OVEN… 

Fifteen minutes later and through the use of spatulas and tongs, I am able to get most of the cookie dough out of the oven (an electric resistance oven).  The cookies that landed on the heating element are by this time just stopping smoking, there are cookies that are baking (and almost done now) on the baking stone, and there are little pieces of gingerbread all over the floor. At least I had not gotten all the cornmeal off the baking stone yet so the cookies that landed there didn’t stick…  The whole house has an interesting aroma of gingersnaps and burning dough, and most of the smoke has gone up through the hood, so at least the smoke detectors didn’t go off.  I have an interesting mix of positions from the shaped cookies, some like a bake intended for a blue movie festival…    Mel (my wife) has been laughing all evening about them.

I have the balance of the dough already in the freezer, so, tomorrow will be another day with really cold dough.  I may try to make them again with more grams of flour to make them less sticky and easier to handle at room temp and see how they turn out.  I’ll also add more ginger, though these were very tasty and chewy once cooled…  maybe the black pepper, too.

I guess this also means I’ll have to break down and get a copy of Rose’s cookie book, now, as well.

Wow, what a story!!  It would be interesting to see what all the “finished” gingerbread looked like.  Sorry about the burn, we’ve all been there.

I make Rose’s recipe (a quadruple batch!) every year and give it away to everyone I can think of (well, I suppose we eat a fair amount, too…).  It is buttery and also gets soft when warm, but I don’t recall it being sticky.  However, I was never going for a chewy texture, I like a little crispiness on the outside, softer on the inside.  I roll the dough on the back of sheet pans and keep rotating them into the refrigerator as needed to keep everything cool and easier to work with. 

Good luck on your next attempt!

Julie - 09 November 2009 10:31 AM

... It would be interesting to see what all the “finished” gingerbread looked like…

Julie, the 2nd batch from your copy of the recipe worked MUCH better!  I did a small batch tonight to see how they would do, and tomorrow I am going to scale up to the 4X batch.  Once they are fully piped and decorated, I’ll post another image.

The cookies as they are cooling, boy do they smell good!

Tom, your gingerbread cookies look perfect!  Can’t wait to see them decorated.

Looking good!  Glad to hear this batch worked well for you!