It’s officially cookie time!
I look forward to making Christmas cookies every December. It always puts me in a festive mood. And it reminds me of the baking and decorating weekends my Mom and I would have together when I was a kid. I was totally in awe of all the sugar and sprinkles. It seemed so magical to me at the time!
I have a lot of all-time favorites here on the blog. And I’ll be getting around to making those at some point this season. But in the meantime, I’ve be working on a couple of new recipes that I’m excited to share with you. And first up are these Gingerbread Cream Pies.
These Gingerbread Cream Pies may not be dressed up in red and green sprinkles, but they taste exactly like Christmas to me. And that’s ultimately the most important thing! These soft cookies are deeply spiced with ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and molasses. And the cloud-like cream cheese filling is irresistibly sweet and tangy.
These Gingerbread Cream Pies are surprisingly quick and easy to make. The batter is easy to work with and doesn’t require any chilling. The cookies bake up quickly. And the filling is only three ingredients.
My best piece of advice for making this recipe is to use a trigger scoop for portioning out the batter (I have this one). Because when all the baked cookies are the same size, it makes assembling the pies a breeze. The consistency of this batter is like brownie or cake batter, and not like a traditional cookie batter than you can scoop and roll. So it’s not really amenable to being weighed out on a kitchen scale. The trigger scoop is your friend here!
Once assembled, these Gingerbread Cream Pies can be eaten immediately. Or stored in your refrigerator for up to 5 days. I actually enjoy them more after a day or two, because some of the filling seeps into the cookies are they get even softer. So good!
Cheers,
Liz
Gingerbread Cream Pies
Ingredients
For the Cookies:
- 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 tsp. ground ginger
- 2 tsp. ground cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg
- 1/2 tsp. ground cloves
- 1 tsp. baking powder
- 1 tsp. baking soda
- 1/2 tsp. salt
- 1 cup packed brown sugar
- 1/2 cup (8 tablespoons) vegetable shortening
- 1 egg
- 1/3 cup molasses (I use Grandma’s Original Molasses)
- 1 tsp. vanilla extract
- 2/3 cups whole milk, at room temperature
For the Filling:
- 8-ounces full fat cream cheese, softened at room temperature
- 8 ounces Marshmallow Fluff
- 1 tsp. vanilla extract
For Finishing:
- 1-2 tablespoons granulated sugar
Instructions
- Pre-heat your oven to 350 degrees.
- In a medium bowl, combine the flour, all the spices, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Set aside.
- In the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat together the brown sugar, vegetable shortening and egg on medium speed, stopping to scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl as necessary. Add the molasses and vanilla extract and beat until the mixture is smooth.
- Add in about one-third of the dry ingredients and beat until partially incorporated. Then add about one-third of the milk and beat until partially incorporated. Repeat this until all the dry ingredients and milk have been added and the batter is smooth and well combined.
- Lightly grease a couple baking sheets and a medium cookie scoop (about 1 1/2 tablespoons sized scoop) with non-stick cooking spray. Scoop the batter and drop it onto your prepared baking sheets, spacing the mounds about 2-inches apart from each other. I can typically fit 9 mounds on each baking sheet.
- Transfer the baking sheets to your pre-heated oven and bake for 9-10 minutes. The cookies should be firm around the edges. They will look puffed up, but will deflate slightly as they cool. Let the cookies cool on their baking sheets for 5 minutes. Then transfer them to a wire rack to continue cooling.
- Once all the cookies and been baked and cooled, make the filling. In your stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, beat the cream cheese until smooth. Then add the Marshmallow Fluff and vanilla extract and beat on medium speed until fully combined and smooth.
- To assemble the cream pies, place a heaping spoonful of filling on the flat side of half of the cookies. Then top with the remaining cookies, pushing down slightly to help spread the filling to the outer edges of the cream pie. Sprinkle granulated sugar over top of the cream pies, if desired.
- Cream pies can be enjoyed immediately. Or wrapped individually in plastic wrap and stored in your refrigerator for 4-5 days.
Notes
Recipe adapted from my Mini Grasshopper Whoopie Pies.
