I have nostalgic memories of making Gingerbread Houses with my family as a kid. Fast forward to being an adult and making store bought Gingerbread Houses with my friend made me realize just how hard it is to get a Gingerbread House to stay put together! I realized my Dad probably did all the “hard” parts of getting the house to stick together and let my sister and I do the fun part of decorating and eating the candy.

I don’t think I’ve made a Gingerbread House since my son has been born, but I’ve been feeling down about my first Pandemic Christmas. I’m praying next Christmas will be back to normal and I’ll be able to have a big holiday meal with my family like we usually do. To distract myself from the Christmas Blues I made Gingerbread Cookies with Cream Cheese Frosting and they were so good so I’m sharing the recipes here.

For the Gingerbread, I followed Jenny’s Recipe here. I noticed some links I shared several years ago are no longer available so I’m going to update this post in 2025 with the directions below.

I cut out the shapes for the cookies and flash freezed them until I was ready to bake them.

For the Cream Cheese frosting, I followed the Taste of Home recipe here. I put the frosting into piping bags to try to make decorating easier, but I didn’t have any fancy tips to use with the bags or fun sprinkles that were holiday appropriate. Not to worry though because the taste is delicious! I’m all about taste over appearances. Everyone loved them! 🙂

These really were simple to make. I made the dough one day, baked and frosted them the next. It was a fun activity to do with my 2.5 year old son. You really could make them all in one day but we had two days in a row of Keaton not napping because he’s teething so we could only accomplish so much each day. Maybe we will attempt a Gingerbread House when he’s older!

What are some of your favorite gingerbread cookie recipes?

Recipe: The Best Gingerbread Cookies 

Adapated from Jenny Steffen’s recipe.

2 sticks of unsalted butter, softened

1 1/2 cups of powdered sugar/confectioners sugar*

2 1/2 cups of flour

1 teaspoon of baking soda

2 teaspoons of cinnamon

1 teaspoon of ginger

1/2 teaspoon of nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon of ground cloves

1 egg

1/3 cup of molasses

Directions: Cream together the butter and powdered sugar in the mixer with the paddle attachment.  Add flour and spices, stir on low until just combined.  Add egg and molasses.  Stir on low just until dough comes together.  

Turn dough out onto plastic wrap, wrap it and refrigerate for 20 minutes.

Roll out dough on floured surface and cut shapes.  

Bake on a parchment or silpat lined baking sheet.  Bake at 350 degrees for 6-8 minutes depending on the size of the cookie.  If you want a crispier cookie (more like a gingersnap) bake for 10-12 minutes.

For the Cream Cheese Frosting (adapted from the Taste of Home website):

1 package (8 ounces) cream cheese, softened

1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1/8 teaspoon salt, optional

3-3/4 to 4 cups confectioners’ sugar/powdered sugar*

Directions: In a large bowl, beat cream cheese, butter, vanilla and salt until fluffy. Gradually beat in enough confectioners’ sugar to achieve desired consistency. Store in the refrigerator.

*Tips / Notes

While none of the recipes call for sifting the powdered sugar, I always like to do this because I find it to leave too many lumps in whatever I’m making when I don’t.