Large Batch Gingerbread Cookies with Egg-free Royal Icing

I spent most of last Sunday in gingerbread heaven.

It took forever to roll and cut what I think was at least 70 cookies, but the kids had fun decorating and eating all the candies when they thought I wasn’t looking. I ended up having to decorate about 40 of them myself so I kept mine simple just to get through them all in good time. The kids loaded theirs up with all kinds of goodies.

Also, someone in the house used all my colouring to make slime so we only had white icing. You can make yours colourful if you want to.

Large Batch Gingerbread Cookies with Egg-free Royal Icing
Makes a lot of cookies (at least 70)

Ingredients

• 1 cup unsalted butter, softened
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1 cup molasses
• 4 egg yolks
• 4 cups all purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 2 teaspoons ground ginger
• 3 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves (if you like - I don’t)

Directions

1. For the cookies; beat butter and sugar on medium speed until fluffy, about 3 minutes. Beat in molasses and egg yolks until well combined.
2. Sift the dry ingredients into the bowl and combine with a wooden spoon.
3. Chill for 30 minutes in the fridge before rolling out. 
4. Preheat the oven to 350F and line a few baking sheets with parchment.
5. Cut the dough into quarters and work with one portion at a time. Refrigerate the rest. 
6. Roll out onto a lightly floured surface to about 1/4" thick. Use a cookie cutter to make your shapes then re-roll the scraps and keep cutting. Repeat until the dough is finished. 
7. Bake each tray for 7 minutes or just until the edges start to brown. This will depend on the size of your cutter and thickness of your dough but mine are always perfect at exactly 7 minutes. Let them cool for 2 minutes before transferring them to wire racks. Cool completely before decorating.
8. For the icing, I used this recipe which is excellent because it hardens perfectly so you can stack your cookies. Decorate with whatever candies or sprinkles your heart desires. 
9. Store in an airtight container for 5 days. I’m not sure how the decorated cookies would freeze but you could certain freeze them un-decorated and then decorate after thawing.