Cubicle kitchen: Gingerbread Cookies with Spiced Apple Glaze

I've said it before and I'll say it again: my baked goods very rarely can be described in a single phrase.  It's never just 'chocolate chip cookies', it's got to be triple chocolate with added this and that and cut into the shape of a cupcake or something.  And this week was no exception.  For the final week of office treats in 2012, I wanted to be seasonal.  Gingersnaps seemed appropriate.

I may be amassing a more respectable baker's pantry, but I don't have quite the supply of spices and molasses that most recipes require, so I cheated and bought a boxed mix.  But I made up for it with the addition of crystallized ginger.  Then I decided that, hey, they make iced gingersnaps, so making a quick glaze would be in no way considered excessive.  And if there was going to be a glaze, it might as well have a little more ginger.  And then, why mix water in with the powdered sugar when there was some perfectly good apple juice in the fridge?  Apples and spices go so well together.

So you see, it's probably best that I start out with a boxed mix, otherwise I might never have had the energy for all of that improvisation.

This isn't the end of gingerbread baking for me, though.  I already know that I can 'get away' with gingerbread cookies in summer when I add lemon candies.  And Vanilla Sugar posted a great list of links to gingerbread-y recipes that I also want to try now, maybe even from scratch.

Gingerbread Cookies with Spiced Apple Glaze
made just over two dozen cookies

Ingredients:

• 1 box gingerbread cookie mix, along with directed wet ingredients (or use your own from-scratch base recipe)
• 1/4 cup of crystallized ginger, chopped
• about 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
• about 2 tablespoons apple juice
• pinches of ground ginger, clove, and cinnamon

Directions:

1. Prepare the dough as directed, adding the crystallized ginger.  For my cookies, I rolled about a tablespoon of dough and placed them 2 inches apart on a parchment paper-lined cookie sheet.
2. After the cookies have baked and cooled, take a small bowl or mug and mix together the powdered sugar, spices, and apple juice until you have a glaze consistency.  Drizzle on the cookies.  Allow to harden before storing the cookies, or serve them as is.