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miffy gingerbread cookies with lemon icing - coco cake land
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Miffy Gingerbread Cookies with Lemon Icing

By: Lyndsay // Coco Cake Land
Makes: 3 dozen medium cookies

ingredients

For the cookies

  • 3½ cups all-purpose flour
  • 1½ teaspoon baking soda
  • ¼ teaspoon salt
  • 1¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • 1¼ teaspoon ground ginger
  • ¼ teaspoon freshly ground pepper
  • 1 cup 2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
  • ¾ cup granulated sugar
  • ¾ cup packed dark brown sugar
  • 4 teaspoons peeled and grated fresh ginger, I used a microplane to grate the ginger
  • 1 egg
  • ¼ cup unsulfured molasses

For the lemon icing

  • 3 ½ cups icing sugar
  • 2 ½ tablespoons meringue powder
  • 1/4 cup plus more of lemon juice
  • Black edible marker

instructions

Make the cookies

  • In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat the butter, sugars and grated ginger on high until light and fluffy, scraping down the sides of the bowl.
  • Add the molasses and egg to combine.
  • In a medium bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, salt, ground ginger, cinnamon and black pepper.
  • With mixer on lowest speed, add the dry ingredients just until a dough forms – do not overbeat.
  • Divide dough into two portions, placing each portion on a piece of floured plastic wrap. Wrap each portion well and flatten into a disc and refrigerate until firm, 1-2 hours. Meanwhile, line three baking sheets with parchment paper and set aside.
  • Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
  • Remove dough one portion at a time for rolling out. On a well floured nonstick surface, roll out first portion of dough to about 1/8 thickness.
  • Working quickly before dough gets too warm, use Miffy cookie cutters or circle cutters to cut out desired shapes (For the donuts, I used a large circle cutter plus a piping tip turned upside down to cut out the donut “hole.”) Place cut out dough on baking sheets. I use a small offset spatula to help move the shapes!
  • Place baking sheets in the freezer and chill dough until firm, 15-20 minutes. This step helps the cookies retain their shape in the oven!
  • Bake in oven until edges slightly brown, 8-15 minutes, depending on cookie size. Don’t turn your back on your cookies – I always watch them pretty closely!
  • Cool cookies on baking sheets. Don’t attempt to ice the cookies until they are completely cool!

Make the icing

  • In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine icing sugar, meringue powder and lemon juice until icing is fluffy and thick. Add more lemon juice sparingly, by the teaspoon, until icing is desired consistency. You will want two consistencies to ice the Miffy cookies – a slightly thicker icing for outlining the shapes, and a slightly looser icing for “flooding” the inside of the shape.
  • I start with the thicker icing portioned into two smaller bowls. The first bowl I dilute with a small amount of additional lemon juice (or you can use water!) until it’s “outline” consistency. The second bowl I dilute with a larger amount of additional liquid (but adding only a little at a time) until it’s “flooding” consistency.

Ice the miffy cookies

  • Fill two separate piping bags lined with a small opening piping tip with your icing – one with outline icing and the second with flooding icing. Cover your icing with damp tea towels at all times when not in use – this stuff dries out quickly!
  • Outline the Miffy cookies with the thicker icing. Let dry for a five minutes until set; fill the inside with the flooding icing. Let these dry overnight, uncovered.
  • Once the cookies are completely dry, use the black edible marker to make eyes and a little X marks the spot for Miffy’s nose.
  • Store cookies for up to 1 week in an airtight container on the counter.

Ice the donut cookies

  • Follow the instructions for making two types of icing as above for the Miffy cookies, but add food colouring if so desired! I use gel food colouring – add a toothpick’s tip at a time, as it is powerful stuff!
  • Fill a piping bag fitted with a small open circle tip with the outline icing. Pipe around the donut hole, then pipe the outline of the donut in a somewhat squiggly line. Let dry for 5 minutes. Fill a piping bag with a slightly larger open circle tip and fill the cookie. Use a toothpick to guide the icing to the edges, if need be. Add sprinkles while the icing is still wet!
  • Let dry overnight until icing is set.
  • Store cookies for up to 1 week in an airtight container on the counter.

notes

Cookie recipe adapted from Martha Stewart
For black edible marker, I like these edible markers by Americolor
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