Sugar Cookies shaped as Gingerbread men

Vaanya, my four and half year old daughter, is at a stage where she is enjoying the world of fairy tales and stories. During the Durga Puja holidays, she got a scrapbook assignment from her Montessori to illustrate her favourite story. Vaanya chose to draw pictures of Goldilocks and the three bears. After the school reopened each story from the scrapbook was read in the class. 

Vaanya's classmate Alvira had chosen The story of Gingerbread Man. Alvira's mother, knowing my passion for baking requested me to bake some Gingerbread cookies for the class. The happy baker in me jumped on the chance to make these cute cookies. We decided not to go the traditional way of adding ginger and spices to the cookies and planned to keep them simple. 

These simple sugar cookies are inspired from Sayantani's blog and I have added a wee bit of cocoa powder to give them a little colour. The cookies are shaped in the Gingerbread man and are decorated with melted white chocolate. 

I was happy to see kids with their gingerbread shaped cookies merrily chomping on it. These cookies are a perfect Christmas treat.

Recipe source : A homemaker's diary

Ingredients : yields about 3 dozen cookies of medium size

• 3 cups all purpose flour
• 1 cup powdered sugar
• 200 gms butter, room temperature
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp vanilla essence
• 2 tbsp cocoa powder

Procedure : 
Preheat oven to 170 degree Celsius.
Take butter and sugar in a bowl and beat till it gets light and fluffy.
Sieve all purpose flour, cocoa powder and baking powder.
Add egg and vanilla essence to the butter-sugar mixture and mix well.
Add the flour mixture in 3-4 additions and keep mixing. 
Knead into a dough and wrap in a plastic or cling wrap and refrigerate for an hour.
Take a little of the dough and roll it to the desired thickness, preferably 1/3rd of an inch.
Cut cookies in desired shape and place them on a butter paper lined baking tray.
Bake cookies for 8-10 minutes.
Allow to cool.
Decorate the cookies with melted white chocolate piping or icing sugar mixed with little water. You may add food colour to make colourful icing.

Happy Cookie enjoying

Amrita