Gingerbread Cookie Bars

There’s no chilling or cookie cutters necessary for today’s recipe, making this a simple alternative to my classic Gingerbread Men. Recipe includes a how-to video at the bottom of the post!

Another lazy-day cookie bar recipe today! After Monday’s Christmas Cookies round-up, I’m feeling a little exhausted with all the scooping, rolling out, and chilling, and thought something a little simpler was in order. Dense, buttery, chewy, and flavored with all of the best holiday spices (ginger, cinnamon, cloves, & nutmeg!), these Gingerbread Cookie Bars are simple, but they’re lacking nothing in terms of flavor. Oh, and you are just going to love the thick, creamy layer of cream cheese frosting on top.

Frosting

No good Gingerbread Cookie is complete without a decorative frosting, and the same can be said for these Gingerbread Cookie bars! While you could get away with using my sugar cookie frosting here, I prefer to use a sturdy, pipe-able variation of my cream cheese frosting instead. The subtly tangy flavor of the cream cheese is the perfect complement to these brightly spiced bars. Not a fan of cream cheese frosting? Use the buttercream frosting in my sugar cookie bar recipe instead! You’ll notice that I add cornstarch to my frosting. I use this technique with the frosting on my Carrot Cake Cookies, as well. What this does is it helps make the frosting more firm and encourages it to “crust” or harden after a few hours. This means a less messy, easier to slice and to transport cookie bar. If you don’t have cornstarch on hand, you can leave this ingredient out, your frosting will just be softer. I used a Wilton 2B tip to pipe the frosting on my gingerbread cookie bars, and you can see just how I did my design it in the video below. Of course, you can decorate them any way you please, or just spread the frosting evenly over the bars (the easiest way to do it!).

Personally, I store these cookie bars at room temperature in an airtight container. However, because of the cream cheese frosting on top, I recommend erring on the side of caution, and if you are going to have them around longer than a day or two, I would place them in the refrigerator. Store in an airtight container and allow them to come back to room temperature before serving. Enjoy!