Easy and awesome – that’s what I look for in a Christmas cookie. These ginger snaps have a ton of flavor and look good too. You can freeze the dough and bake it later if you prefer.

This recipe makes 64 cookies if you use a teaspoon sized cookie scoop.

For this recipe you’ll need:

• 10 tablespoons butter, softened
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon ground ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom
• 1/2 teaspoon ground clove
• pinch of salt
• 2 teaspoons grated fresh ginger
• 1/4 cup molasses
• 1 egg
• 3/4 cup chopped candied ginger (about 1/4″ pieces)
• 2 cups + 1 tablespoon flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

Beat the butter, sugar and dried spices together until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes on low/medium speed.

Add the fresh ginger, molasses and egg and mix on medium speed for about a minute.  Scrape down the bowl as need to make sure everything is well mixed.  Stir in the candied ginger, then add the flour and baking soda.  Stir until well combined.

Scoop dough onto a parchment lined cookie sheet.  I use a small cookie scoop that is about ~1 teaspoon and leave about and inch of space between cookies.

**See instructions below for freezing the dough.**

Bake for ~12 minutes, rotating the pan half way through baking.  You may need to adjust your baking time depending on the size of your cookie scoop.

Let cool for about 5 minutes then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

To decorate the cookies you’ll need:

• 2 cups powdered sugar
• 1 tablespoon freshly grated ginger (peel the ginger first so you won’t get brown bits in your icing)
• 1/4 cup chopped candied ginger (nicely shaped cubes of about 1/4″)

In a medium sized bowl, combine the powdered sugar and the fresh ginger.  Add 1 tablespoon of hot water and stir with a fork.  Add more hot water, a few drops at a time, until the icing is thin enough to drizzle off the fork.

Drizzle the icing over the cooled cookies and add a few pieces of candied ginger on top.  I used 3 pieces of ginger on my small cookies.

Let the icing cool and harden before packing the cookies away in an airtight container.

**To freeze the dough:  Scoop cookie dough onto a cookie sheet.  Put them as close together as you can without touching.  Freeze for at least an hour.  Transfer to a sealed container (a zipped freezer bag or plastic container) and return to the freezer.  When you are ready to bake the cookies, follow the same directions as above for cooking.  You do not need to defrost the cookies before baking, but you may need to add an extra minute to the baking time.  Cookies will keep in the freezer for at least a month (but fresher is better!).