Decorated Gingerbread Tip

No one will ever know that the gingerbread under the icing of these snowflakes might of had a few cracks.

Gingerbread is one sturdy dough that can form cracks as you roll it out. I've found that I can manage to get one side of the dough fairly smooth but it really is tough to get both looking good.

My tip is to just focus on getting one side smooth and make sure that is on the bottom when you cut out your cookies. That's right, leave the blemishes front and center on top of the dough because they will be covered when you decorate the cookies. The bottom is the only part of the gingerbread that is left exposed.

Letting go of perfect looking dough top and bottom also keeps me from fussing and over-rolling which can lead to tough gingerbread.

Believe me, the icing will hide everything.

A cookie ready to be baked. A few cracks in gingerbread are really hard to avoid and over working the dough isn't good either.

I cut the dough so that the smoothest side of it is on the back of the cookie.

Please don't stress, those cracks will soon disappear.

Perfect!

Even better!