Chewy Gingerbread Squares

I made these the last week of August, back before summer had actually arrived in Seattle. Now that we are getting our share of sunshine, these cookies seem a little less appropriate, but I will post about them anyways because they were GOOD.

I found this recipe while snooping around the Canadian Baker. I made only three tiny modifications to her recipe: 1) No candied ginger 2) I added lemon zest to the icing 3) I over-baked them because of my bad, bad oven...

But even though I nearly ruined them, they were still chewy and spicy, with a texture like a cakey brownie, or dense gingerbread. The icing was super-lemony. I will definitely make them again once the leaves turn crunchy.



Gingerbread Squares:
- 1 cup brown sugar
- 1/2 cup molasses
- 1/4 cup melted butter
- 2 eggs
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 2 cups flour
- 1 tsp ground ginger
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp cinnamon
- 1/4 tsp ground cloves
- generous 1/4 tsp salt

Icing:
- 1 cup powdered sugar
- 1/4 cup melted butter
- 2 Tbsp lemon juice
- zest of 1 lemon

For the icing: mix everything together just before spreading it on the gingerbread.

For the gingerbread:
Oven to 350 degrees; line a 13 x 9 inch pan with parchment.
Whisk together dry ingredients in small bowl. In larger bowl, whisk together butter, sugar, molasses, eggs, and vanilla. Add dry ingredients to wet, mix until combined, then pour into prepared pan. Bake until toothpick is clean, about 40 minutes (unless your oven sucks, like mine, in which case your chewy gingerbread squares will be overdone at 28 minutes.) Cool in pan for 45 minutes, then spread on icing.