Ultimate Gingerbread House Cookies: A Festive & Delicious Holiday Tradition
Embrace the magic of the holiday season with our delightful Gingerbread House Cookies! These unique and festive treats are crafted with a delicious gingerbread cookie base, generously studded with colorful gum drops, crunchy peppermint candies, and all your favorite gingerbread house decorations. If you can use it to adorn a gingerbread house, you can absolutely bake it into these whimsical cookies!
Every year, as Christmas approaches, our family cherishes the beloved tradition of building gingerbread houses. While we adore the creative process, we often take a shortcut by using graham crackers instead of baking traditional gingerbread walls. The real challenge, however, always arises when the kids, fueled by holiday excitement, want to devour their masterpieces – sometimes even before the icing has set! While I love to display our completed gingerbread houses as beautiful holiday decorations, the super-strong icing we use for construction, though functional, isn’t always the tastiest. That’s where these delectable Gingerbread House Cookies come in, offering the perfect solution to satisfy those candy cravings without demolishing the decorations.
A Delicious Solution for Leftover Candy
These Gingerbread House Cookies are an ingenious way to utilize all those delightful leftover candies from your gingerbread house decorating session. They are so enticing that your children will be easily convinced to enjoy these cookies instead of nibbling on their magnificent, albeit sturdy, gingerbread creations. Imagine all your favorite gingerbread house toppings – from crunchy ginger snaps to chewy gum drops and refreshing peppermint candies – baked into a soft, chewy, and utterly unique Christmas cookie! It’s the ideal festive treat that combines fun, flavor, and practicality, making your holiday baking truly special.
Why You’ll Adore Our Gingerbread House Cookies:
- Unleash Creativity: A fantastic way to get creative with your leftover holiday candy and decorations.
- Kid-Friendly Fun: Kids will love helping to mix in their favorite candies, and even more so, eating the results!
- Perfect Holiday Flavor: Captures the essence of gingerbread with an exciting twist of mixed candies.
- Reduce Waste: A brilliant solution for using up those extra gum drops, peppermints, and sprinkles that might otherwise go stale.
- Shareable & Giftable: These cookies are perfect for holiday parties, cookie exchanges, or as thoughtful homemade gifts for friends and family.
- Irresistibly Delicious: A soft, chewy cookie base loaded with a variety of textures and sweet, festive flavors in every bite.
Essential Ingredients for Gingerbread House Cookies
Crafting these festive cookies requires a blend of classic baking staples and a fun assortment of gingerbread house decorations. Here’s a closer look at the key ingredients:
- Butter – You’ll need one stick (½ cup) of softened, unsalted butter. Ensuring your butter is at true room temperature is crucial for a smooth, creamy dough and perfectly textured cookies. Cold butter won’t cream properly, and melted butter can lead to flat, greasy cookies.
- Brown Sugar – We recommend light brown sugar for its rich, molasses-like flavor and moist texture, which contributes to the cookies’ chewiness. For an even deeper, more robust taste, feel free to use dark brown sugar. Always make sure your brown sugar is fresh and soft, not hardened, for the best results.
- Egg – Just one large egg acts as a binder, bringing all the ingredients together and adding richness and structure to your cookies.
- Vanilla Extract – A high-quality vanilla extract is a must! It enhances all the other flavors in the dough, providing a warm, inviting aroma and taste that complements the gingerbread and candy notes beautifully.
- Flour – You will need 1 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour. Proper measurement is key; spoon the flour into your measuring cup and level it off for accuracy.
- Cornstarch – This is our secret ingredient for incredibly soft and chewy cookies! Cornstarch helps to tenderize the dough, preventing the cookies from becoming dry or crumbly and ensuring a delightful melt-in-your-mouth consistency.
- Baking Soda – As the primary leavening agent, baking soda creates a tender crumb and helps the cookies spread perfectly. Always check that your baking soda is fresh and active for optimal rise.
- Salt – A small amount of salt is essential to balance the sweetness from the sugars and candies, making all the flavors “pop” and preventing the cookies from tasting bland.
- Gingerbread House Toppings – This is where the fun truly begins! Gather any leftover decorations you have: broken ginger snap or gingerbread cookies for an extra ginger kick, colorful gum drops, crunchy crushed peppermint candies, festive M&Ms, sweet licorice pieces, vibrant sprinkles, spicy red hots, fruity Skittles, or soft marshmallows. The more variety, the more exciting your cookies will be!
How to Make Gingerbread House Cookies: Step-by-Step
Making these festive cookies is a straightforward process that yields delicious results. Follow these simple steps for holiday baking success:
- Prepare Your Oven: Begin by preheating your oven to 350°F (175°C). This ensures the oven is at the correct temperature for even baking as soon as your cookies are ready to go in.
- Combine Dry Ingredients: In a medium-sized mixing bowl, sift together the all-purpose flour, cornstarch, baking soda, and salt. Sifting helps to aerate the flour and remove any lumps, ensuring a smooth, evenly mixed dough. Set this bowl aside.
- Cream Wet Ingredients: In a separate, large mixing bowl, cream together the softened butter, brown sugar, egg, and vanilla extract. Use an electric mixer to beat these ingredients for at least 2-3 minutes until the mixture is light, fluffy, and well combined. This creaming process incorporates air, contributing to the soft texture of your cookies.
- Gradually Add Dry to Wet: Slowly add the sifted dry ingredients into the butter mixture. Mix on low speed, or by hand, just until everything is combined and no streaks of flour remain. Be careful not to overmix, as this can lead to tough cookies.
- Fold in the Toppings: Gently fold in your chosen gingerbread house candies. This includes broken gingersnap or gingerbread cookies, gumdrops, crushed peppermint candies, M&Ms, and any other festive decorations you’ve gathered. Distribute them evenly throughout the dough.
- Scoop and Space: Using a 1-inch cookie scoop, drop uniform balls of cookie dough onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat. Arrange them about 1-2 inches apart to allow for proper spreading during baking.
- Bake to Perfection: Bake in the preheated oven for 10-12 minutes. The edges should be lightly golden, and the centers may still look slightly soft or “underbaked.”
- Cool and Enjoy: Remove the baking sheet from the oven and let the cookies cool on the sheet for a few minutes. This allows them to finish baking through a process known as “carryover cooking” and firm up before you transfer them to a wire rack to cool completely.
GINGERBREAD HOUSE COOKIES
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Ingredients
- ½ cup softened butter
- ¾ cup brown sugar
- 1 large egg
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
- 2 tsp cornstarch
- 1 tsp baking soda
- ½ teaspoon salt
- Gingerbread house toppings (e.g., broken ginger snap or gingerbread cookies, gum drops, crushed peppermint candies, M&Ms, licorice, sprinkles, red hots, Skittles, marshmallows, etc.)
Instructions
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Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C).
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Sift flour, cornstarch, baking soda, and salt in a medium mixing bowl. Set aside.
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In another large bowl, cream butter, brown sugar, egg, and vanilla extract. Beat for at least 2-3 minutes until light and fluffy.
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Add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture and mix just until combined. Avoid overmixing.
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Gently fold in broken gingersnap cookies, gumdrops, crushed peppermint candies, M&Ms, and any other desired gingerbread house candies to the dough until evenly distributed.
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Using a cookie scoop, drop 1-inch cookie dough balls onto a lined baking sheet, spacing them 1-2 inches apart.
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Bake for 10-12 minutes, or until edges are lightly golden and centers are set.
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Remove from the oven and cool on the cookie sheets for a few minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely. Enjoy your festive Gingerbread House Cookies!
Notes
Nutrition
Tips for Making the Best Gingerbread House Cookies
While making homemade cookies is often quite simple, a few expert tips can ensure your Gingerbread House Cookies turn out perfectly soft, chewy, and flavorful every single time:
- Ensure Proper Flour Consistency: The amount of flour in your dough is critical for the right texture. If your cookie dough feels too sticky to scoop easily or handle, you may need to add a tiny bit more flour, a tablespoon at a time, until it reaches a manageable consistency. However, be cautious not to add too much, as this can result in dry, crumbly cookies.
- Master the Creaming Method: Don’t rush the creaming process! When you beat together the softened butter and sugars, aim for at least 2-3 minutes. This essential step incorporates air into the mixture, creating a light and fluffy base that yields a tender, melt-in-your-mouth cookie texture. It’s the foundation for a truly great cookie.
- Always Preheat Your Oven: This might seem obvious, but it’s a step often overlooked. Baking cookies in a properly preheated oven ensures that they begin to bake immediately at the correct temperature, leading to consistent results, even spreading, and proper leavening. Cold ovens can cause cookies to spread too much or bake unevenly.
- Invest in a Quality Cookie Scoop: For perfectly shaped, uniformly sized cookies, a cookie scoop is an absolute game-changer. Not only does it make the scooping process quicker and cleaner, but it also guarantees that all your cookies are the same size, which helps them bake evenly. No more guessing or unevenly baked batches!
- Use Properly Softened Butter: This is one of the most common pitfalls in cookie baking. Your butter should be softened, but absolutely NOT melted. Cold, hard butter won’t cream correctly, resulting in a dense dough. Overly warm or melted butter can lead to flat, greasy cookies that spread too much. Aim for butter that gives slightly when pressed, like a soft cheese.
- Line Your Baking Sheets: To prevent sticking and ensure easy cleanup, always use parchment paper or a silicone baking mat. These liners create a non-stick surface, allowing your beautifully baked cookies to slide right off the pan without any scraping or breakage, preserving their perfect shape.
- Avoid Overbaking: For soft and chewy cookies, resist the urge to overbake! When you remove your Gingerbread House Cookies from the oven, they should still look slightly underdone in the center, perhaps even a little gooey. They will continue to bake and firm up on the hot cookie sheet for a few more minutes (this is called carryover cooking). Pulling them out at this stage guarantees a wonderfully soft, tender interior.
What is the Best Way to Soften Butter for Cookies?
Getting your butter to the perfect “softened” stage is paramount for cookie success, as it directly impacts the texture of your finished product. Remember, softened means pliable, not melted!
The ideal scenario is to plan ahead: simply leave your stick of butter out on the kitchen counter for about 1-2 hours before you intend to start baking. This allows it to slowly come to a uniform room temperature, ensuring it’s soft enough to cream smoothly with the sugar without being greasy.
However, if you’re like me and those cookie cravings strike unexpectedly, there are quick ways to soften butter with care. Place the butter in your microwave and heat it in very short bursts, typically 5-second intervals. After each interval, check the butter by pressing it gently. The goal is for it to yield easily to pressure, but still hold its shape. Be exceedingly careful to pull it out before any part of it starts to melt, as even a small melted spot can affect your cookie dough.
I personally find the defrost setting on my microwave to be an excellent method for softening butter. While I can’t provide a scientific explanation for *why* it works so well, it seems to soften the butter much more evenly than regular microwave settings. It also takes a bit longer, which gives you a larger margin of error and significantly reduces the risk of accidentally melting your butter. This method consistently gives me perfectly softened butter, ready for creaming.
Can You Freeze Gingerbread House Cookies?
Absolutely! Freezing cookies is a fantastic way to prepare ahead for holiday gatherings or simply to ensure you always have a delicious treat on hand. There are two primary methods I prefer for freezing these festive cookies:
Method 1: Freezing Unbaked Cookie Dough Balls
This method is perfect for fresh-baked cookies on demand. Start by scooping and shaping your cookie dough into uniform balls, as if you were about to bake them. Place these unbaked dough balls in a single layer on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. You can arrange them fairly close together, but ensure they aren’t touching. Once the baking sheet is full, place it in the freezer. Allow the dough balls to freeze completely until they are solid, typically a few hours.
Once frozen, transfer the solid cookie dough balls into a large Ziploc freezer bag or an airtight freezer-safe container. Label the bag with the date and baking instructions. Now, you can pull out and bake as many cookies as you desire whenever a craving strikes! When baking from frozen, you have two options: either let them thaw on a cookie sheet at room temperature while your oven preheats, or bake them directly from frozen. If baking from frozen, you’ll need to add an extra 2-4 minutes to the original bake time to compensate for the cold dough. This method yields the freshest-tasting cookies with minimal effort on baking day.
Method 2: Freezing Baked Cookies
If you’ve already baked a large batch and want to save some for later, freezing baked cookies is also a great option. First, ensure your cookies are completely cooled to room temperature. This is vital, as freezing warm cookies can lead to condensation and ice crystals, which can ruin their texture. Once cooled, arrange the cookies in a single layer in an airtight freezer bag or a rigid freezer-safe container. If stacking multiple layers, place a piece of parchment paper between each layer to prevent sticking.
While most people won’t notice a difference, some discerning palates might find that cookies that have been frozen and thawed can be slightly drier or a bit more crumbly than freshly baked ones. However, they will still be delicious! When you’re ready to enjoy them, simply remove them from the freezer and let them thaw at room temperature for about 20-30 minutes. This quick thawing time makes them an incredibly convenient treat.
How to Get a Perfectly Round Cookie Shape
Ever wonder how bakeries achieve those perfectly round, uniformly shaped cookies? Here’s a neat little trick you can use at home, especially effective for drop cookies like our Gingerbread House Cookies!
The secret lies in shaping them right after they come out of the oven. Once your cookies have finished baking and are still hot on the pan (before transferring them to a cooling rack), grab a medium-sized round cookie cutter or even a round glass or drinking mug. The key is that the circular object should be slightly larger in diameter than your baked cookie.
Carefully place the round cutter or glass over the top of a warm cookie. Then, gently swirl and rotate the cutter around the cookie, nudging its edges inward as you go. The warmth of the cookie allows it to be molded slightly. The more you swirl, the more you can coax the cookie into a perfectly symmetrical, round shape. This technique helps to gather in any irregular edges or bumps, creating that polished, bakery-quality look. After you’ve “swirled” all your cookies, let them cool completely on the baking sheet or transfer them to a wire rack. This trick works wonderfully for drop cookies and rolled cookies, though it’s not suitable for cutout cookies.
You’ll Love These Other Gingerbread Cookie Recipes!
If you’re a fan of classic gingerbread flavors, be sure to explore more festive recipes from our collection:
- FROSTED GINGERBREAD SUGAR COOKIES
- SOFT GINGER MOLASSES COOKIES
- GINGERBREAD SANDWICH COOKIES
- MINI GINGERBREAD COOKIES
- SOFT GINGERBREAD COOKIES
- CARAMEL APPLE GINGERBREAD COOKIES
- SPICED REINDEER COOKIES
- BEST GINGERBREAD CUT OUT COOKIES
- GINGERSNAP COOKIES
These Gingerbread House Cookies are more than just a sweet treat; they’re a celebration of holiday traditions, creativity, and delicious flavors, all baked into one delightful package. Gather your leftover gingerbread house candies, whip up a batch, and enjoy the cheerful spirit they bring!
Speaking of holiday magic and family fun, this little girl brings so much joy into our lives. She is always adorable, but doesn’t she make the most perfect Anna? She absolutely adores everything girly, twirly, shiny, and sparkly, and I can hardly believe she’s almost four years old! Creating memories and delicious treats with her is what the holidays are all about.
