McCormick® Gingerbread Men Cookies

I love ginger flavored cookies. Gingersnaps, Spiced Wafers, you name it, they will be eaten. Having so much time off from work this year for the holiday allowed me to actually bake and decorate gingerbread cutouts with the kids. It was a wonderful day spent in the kitchen.

Ingredients
3 cups flour
2 teaspoons McCormick® Ground Ginger
1 teaspoon McCormick® Ground Cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon McCormick® Ground Nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 cup molasses
1 egg
1 teaspoon McCormick® Pure Vanilla Extract

Directions
1. Mix flour, ginger, cinnamon, baking soda, nutmeg and salt in large bowl.
2. Beat butter and brown sugar in large bowl with electric mixer on medium speed until light and fluffy.
3. Add molasses, egg and vanilla; beat well.
4. Gradually beat in flour mixture on low speed until well mixed.
5. Press dough into a thick flat disk. Wrap in plastic wrap. Refrigerate 4 hours or overnight.
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6. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Roll out dough to 1/4-inch thickness on lightly floured work surface.
7. Cut into gingerbread men shapes with 5-inch cookie cutter.
8. Place 1 inch apart on ungreased baking sheets.
9. Bake 8 to 10 minutes or until edges of cookies are set and just begin to brown.
10. Cool on baking sheets 1 to 2 minutes. Remove to wire racks; cool completely.
11. Decorate cooled cookies as desired. Store cookies in airtight container up to 5 days.

Making the cookies and waiting for them to cool so they can be decorated, can be a little time consuming. I know my 2 littles tend to get a little impatient. I baked and cooled the cookies while they were at the playground with Dad to save ~~my sanity~~ time. Then after cooling the fun can really start.

I made a simple icing for the cookies of corn syrup, milk and powdered sugar. This way the decorations would easily stick to the cookie.