Sunset's Frosted Ginger Cookies

Friends of ours held their annual cookie exchange party this afternoon. I love going to this because we come home with so much variety! This week we are all supposed to email the hostess with our recipes. This excites me, because there were some really yummy cookies in the mix!! So, as soon as the recipes come through, I'll share our family's favorites with you.

But to start off the cookie recipe posts, here is a real winner that I made for the party. It came in last year's Sunset Magazine (December 2006 issue). What I love about it is that it was an easy dough to make and work with. The Pampered Chef cookie medium cookie scoop made perfectly round cookies. And the frosting was so quick and easy.

Frosted Ginger Cookies

In a large bowl (or mixer) cream until light and fluffy:
1 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup butter, at room temperature

Mix in:
1 egg
3 tablespoons molasses

In a separate bowl mix together:
2 cups flour, sifted
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons ground ginger
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg

Slowly mix in dry ingredients with wet ones, and blend well.

Fill a shallow bowl with
sugar (about 1/2 cup)

Using a cookie scoop, scoop out balls of dough, and place a few at a time in the bowl of sugar. Roll the balls in sugar, and place on a cookie sheet. Leave room for spreading (on a 12 x 15 Pampered Chef stoneware pan, or the 10 x 15 1/2 bar pan, there was room for 12 cookies per pan).

Bake at 350° for about 10 minutes, or until the top starts to crackle. Transfer to cooling racks.

Once completely cool, drizzle icing over the cookies.

Icing

In a ziplock bag, mix together:
1 cup powdered sugar
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1-2 TB water

Mix until the icing is lump free and will drizzle easily. If it's too thick, add a little more water...just a few drops at a time. Arrange all your cookies out in one area (works best if you can do them all at once!) Cut a tiny corner off at the bottom of the bag and start drizzling the icing all over the cookies.

They take about 30-40 minutes for the icing to dry (the time really depends on how thick the icing is).

Yield: Makes 40 cookies*

Nutritional Information: CALORIES 102(33% from fat); FAT 3.8g (sat 2.2g); PROTEIN 0.8g; CHOLESTEROL 15mg; SODIUM 98mg; FIBER 0.2g; CARBOHYDRATE 16g (Nutritional analysis is per cookie.)

What I love about these cookies is that they taste and look great. We'll be making them again next year.

*Though the original recipe says the recipe makes 40 cookies, I only got 28 out of it! Perhaps my Pampered Chef medium cookie scoops were larger than the original "walnut sized" scoops the recipe originally called for. Anyway, using the larger scoop will also alter the nutritional information per cookie.