Nativity Gingerbread Party

December 17, 2019

This year, in efforts to focus more on Christ, we had some friends over to decorate a Nativity Gingerbread Scene. I loved the TIME spent with my kids making the dough, cutting out shapes, baking, taste testing (apparently my six loves baking soda plain), and decorating together. Whether you make gingerbread men or a nativity scene, the gingerbread cookie recipe from
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Gingerbread Recipe
3 cups flour
3/4 cup brown sugar
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 Tablespoon ground cinnamon
1 Tablespoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon salt
12 Tablespoons butter, softened (and cut into 12 pieces)
3/4 cup molasses
2 Tablespoons milk
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Mix flour, brown sugar, baking soda and spices together in a large bowl (I used our Bosch). Add butter pieces. Mix until it looks sandy. Gradually add molasses and milk.
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Scrape the dough onto the counter on a piece of parchment paper. Roll dough out 1/4 inch thick (it will roll out to be about the size of a large cookie sheet). You can either freeze the rolled dough until firm, 15-20 minutes or chill in the fridge for 2 hours (or overnight).
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Preheat the oven to 350. Remove dough from the freezer/fridge and cut out gingerbread people. Transfer the shapes using a metal spatula and space them an inch apart on the baking sheet. Bake for 8 minutes. Allow to cool before frosting.
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Note: We made four total batches of the recipe above (2 batches will fit in the Bosch at a time), which made enough nativity scenes for 8 children. The triangle that comes in the Nativity Cookie Cutter Kit (from Amazon) is huge, so we made a smaller version from cardboard to cut out around.