Painted Sugar Cookies

MRS. FIELDS GINGERBREAD COOKIES (Makes about 3 dozen)
1 cup salted butter, softened (remove from refrigerator 1 hour before starting)
3 and 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 teaspoons ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
3/4 cup dark brown sugar, firmly packed
1 large egg
1/2 cup unsulfured molasses
ICING: as described above,
About 3/4 cups confectioner’s sugar
5 tablespoons milk

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger and cloves. In a large bowl mix butter and sugar together with a pastry blender or by hand. Add egg and molasses and beat together with electric mixer on medium speed. Scrape bowl and add flour mixture. Blend by hand or mixer with dough hooks until just combined, do not overmix. Separate into two balls of equal size, placing each on plastic wrap. Flatten each and wrap tightly, then refrigerate 1 hour, or until very firm.
Using one dough patty at a time, roll out with a floured rolling pin on a floured surface to 1/4 inch thickness and cut shapes with cookie cutters, as many as you can each time. Remove excess dough, reform patty, and return to refrigerator. With a metal spatula carefully transfer shapes to ungreased baking sheet, about 1/2 inch apart. Bake until just starting to brown, about 14 minutes. Repeat same process with second original dough patty, continue until dough is too small to cut shapes from.
Allow cookies to cool completely before decorating with icing. Allow icing to harden completely before storing cookies, about 2-3 hours.

recipe source here

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