Recipe: Iced Gingerbread Bars

So simple and delicious, these Gingerbread Bars are the perfect thing to add to your Holiday Treat gift giving.

So remember how last week I said I’m not the blogger that generally has recipes and gift guides and things ready before the actual holiday? Well … that’s mostly true … except today! Sharing a recipe that would be perfect to add to holiday treat trays if you happen to do baking and sharing during the holiday season.

And yeah, I’m just as impressed as you are. This will probably not happen again any time soon.

I did a few cooking workshops this weekend with kids, and our focus was on holidays treats. I did a few tried-and-true recipes, and this recipe for Gingerbread Bars was a new one.

So simple to make, the kids actually did it all on their own. The recipe uses, for the most part, ingredients you likely have on hand already. The only ingredient I needed to purchase was the molasses … and since I rarely use molasses, if you have any recipes that use it as a ingredient, please share!

Once you mix up the ingredients, you just spread it into the baking dish and make sure it’s level. It bakes up super fast, and then once it was cooled, I drizzled it with the confectioners glaze.

It’s something completely different, but since it’s so simple to make, you can easy bang out many batches of this to add to your holiday trays. The kids have a half day on Friday, and I promised we would spend the afternoon baking up a storm.

Oh! And one more super important thing .., if you don’t like gingerbread and gingerbread-flavored things, make this anyway! Neither Nick nor I like gingerbread anything, and we loved these. And also, because it’s sort of a different flavor, I think you can safely stop after one or two bars … which means you won’t be stuffing yourself silly.

Hungry for more items for your holiday trays?
Espresso Delights are so simple and pretty.
Mexican Weddings Cakes are always a crowd pleaser.
These Cinnamon Nut Spice Cookies are one of my favorites, which means I don’t make them too often, because I will eat them all.
No Bake Cookies hit my kitchen regularly because they’re a favorite of both kids.

Ingredients
For the Gingerbread Bars

• ½ cup softened butter
• 1 cup brown sugar
• ¼ cup molasses
• 1 egg, room temperature
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• ¼ teaspoon ground cloves
• ¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg (I skipped)

• 1 cup powdered sugar
• 1-3 tablespoons milk
• ½ teaspoon vanilla (I skipped)

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 F. In a large bowl cream together the butter and brown sugar, beat in the molasses and egg. Whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, cloves and nutmeg in a separate bowl. Add the dry ingredients to the wet and stir until well combined.
2. Press into the bottom of a greased 9 x 13 inch baking pan. Bake for 14-16 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out with a few crumbs. Let cool completely before glazing.
3. To make the glaze, mix together the powdered sugar, vanilla and enough of the milk to make a smooth consistency that is easy to drizzle. Drizzle onto cooled bars. Cut into squares.