Easy Mini Gingerbread Cookies with Maple Icing
These homemade mini gingerbread cookies are 1,000% better than store-bought. With warm spices and maple icing, they're soft, chewy, and so fun to decorate with friends and family. Add them to a cookie box or bring them to holiday parties for a cute, bite-sized treat!
Ingredients
Mini Gingerbread Cookies
- 210 grams all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting (1 3/4 cups)
- 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/4 teaspoon Kosher salt
- 1 1/2 teaspoons ground ginger
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon cardamom
- 1/4 teaspoon cloves
- 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
- 114 grams unsalted butter, softened (1/2 cup)
- 105 grams packed brown sugar (1/2 cup)
- 1 egg yolk, room temperature
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 60 grams unsulphured molasses (1/4 cup)
Maple Icing
- 120 grams powdered sugar (1 cup)
- 24 milliliters whole milk, (2 Tablespoons)
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/2 teaspoon maple extract
- Sprinkles, for decorating (optional)
Equipment
- Kitchen scale (or measuring cups)
- Stand mixer (or hand mixer)
- Mini Christmas cookie cutters (2-inches)
- Piping bag, with a small round tip
Instructions
Make the dough
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the all-purpose flour, baking soda, Kosher salt, ginger, cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, and nutmeg. Set aside.
- Using a hand mixer or stand mixer, beat the butter and brown sugar in a large mixing bowl until it's light and fluffy, 3-4 minutes. Add the egg yolk and vanilla extract until incorporated. Then, beat in the molasses until thoroughly mixed.
- Add the flour mixture, beating just until the dough comes together. Don't over-mix! Stir the dough with a rubber spatula to make sure there are no dry spots.
- Pat the dough into two 1/2-inch thick discs. Wrap each dough disc in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 2-3 hours, or overnight.
Roll & bake
- Once the dough is chilled, preheat the oven to 350°F (177°C) and line two sheet pans with parchment paper.
- Dust a clean surface with all-purpose flour. Working one disc at a time, roll the dough with a rolling pin until it's about 1/4-inch thick, turning it a quarter after each roll. If the dough cracks, just press it together with your fingers and keep rolling.
- Use mini (2-inch) cookie cutters to cut out as many cookies as you can. Re-roll the dough scraps until all the dough is used up. Repeat with the second disc of dough.
- Line the cookies about 1 1/2 inches apart on the parchment-lined sheet pans. Bake the cookies for 7-8 minutes, until the edges are set and the tops are dry. Let the cookies cool on the sheet pan for 5 minutes and then transfer them to a wire rack to cool completely.
Make the icing & decorate
- In a small bowl, whisk together the powdered sugar, milk, vanilla extract, and maple extract. Add more milk (1 Tablespoon at a time) if it's too thick or more powdered sugar (1 Tablespoon at a time) if it's too thin. The icing should be the consistency of a very thick glue. You want it to be thin enough to pipe but thick enough to hold its shape.
- Spoon the icing into a piping bag with a small round tip. Pipe the icing on the cooled gingerbread cookies and decorate with sprinkles, if desired. Enjoy!
Notes
For amazing cookies every time, use a kitchen scale to weigh the ingredients instead of using measuring cups. If you don't have a scale, then use the fluff-and-spoon method to measure the flour. First, whisk the flour until it's nice and fluffy. Then, spoon the fluffed flour into a measuring cup and level it off without packing it in.
For extra mini cookies, use 1 1/2-inch cookie cutters. Start checking for doneness at 5-6 minutes.
If you like crispy cookies, roll the dough extra thin, about 1/8-inch thick. Then, bake the cookies for 1-2 extra minutes, until the edges are crisp.
It's important to keep the dough chilled so it doesn't stick. Refrigerate extra dough and unbaked cookies while you're rolling and cutting.
The icing in this recipe is pretty basic for easy piping. But, it won't work for intricate, complicated designs. If you want to decorate the cookies with more elaborate designs (like a sugar cookie), then I would use the maple royal icing in this recipe instead.
Since these cookies are tiny, you'll want to use a very small round tip for piping. I used Wilton's round piping tip number 2.
Serving: 1mini cookie, Calories: 57kcal, Carbohydrates: 9g, Protein: 0.6g, Fat: 2g, Saturated Fat: 1g, Cholesterol: 9mg, Sodium: 19mg, Sugar: 5g, Iron: 0.3mg
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