Gingerbread is a tasty and fragrant delicacy that has been a symbol of Christmas for several centuries. Today we will tell you where and how gingerbread cookies appeared, give advice on their preparation, recipes for dark and light gingerbread, and at the end of the article a surprise awaits you: ready-made templates for cutting gingerbread and examples of painting them with icing!
A bit of history
Gingerbread is a very ancient delicacy. The prototype of gingerbread was known even before our era in ancient Egypt. In Russia, gingerbread appeared in the ninth century, they were called "honey bread" because of the large amount of honey in their composition. Various spices began to be added much later, when they were brought from the countries of the Middle East and India. Gingerbread cookies were baked in the shape of various animals, so they were not only a tasty treat, but also toys for children.
motherland gingerbread considered the UK. Legend has it that the recipe for gingerbread and ginger itself were brought by medieval crusaders. Ginger was a symbol of health, so it was added to many Christmas sweets. Since then, it has been a tradition among Catholics to bake gingerbread for Christmas.
By the way, in Europe and the USA, gingerbread cookies are often baked in the shape of a man - the so-called Gingerbread Man. This is a popular character from an old fairy tale, similar in plot to the fairy tale "Gingerbread Man".
Now the German city of Nuremberg is called the “gingerbread capital of the world”. There is a whole market where you can buy gingerbread made according to an old recipe.
Source: lidovky.cz
- In addition to ginger, use cinnamon, cloves, coriander, cardamom, nutmeg, allspice, and for even more spice - orange peel or cocoa.
- To make the gingerbread fragrant and acquire a pleasant color, use natural dark honey instead of sugar.
- Instead of baking soda, you can add two teaspoons of cognac as a baking powder.
- The dough can be raw or custard. Raw dough is obtained when all the ingredients are simply mixed together. Custard - when honey is heated with water (milk) and butter.
- Gingerbread is also a great Christmas decoration. Before baking, make a hole in them for the thread.
- Before you put the gingerbread cookies in the oven, brush them with an egg - this will give them a glossy shine.
- It can be difficult to know if the gingerbread is ready or not yet. If they are browned around the edges, have risen a little, then you can take them out of the oven.
- Lay the finished gingerbread cookies on a flat surface so as not to spoil their shape.
- Decorating gingerbread is not necessary immediately. It is better to bake them in the evening, and paint them in the morning. Protein glaze can be tinted with berry juice.
- It turns out that gingerbread cookies need to “ripen”, that is, they need time to become more tasty and fragrant - at least a week. Place the gingerbread in glass jar and put an orange peel or an apple slice on them. Close the lid tightly. Every day for a week, do not forget to change the skin of an orange or an apple for a fresh one.
Source: mindblowingpicture.com
Chocolate gingerbread
Ingredients:
- flour, 175 g
- ground ginger, 1 tsp
- ground cinnamon, ½ tsp
- ground cloves, ½ tsp
- baking powder or soda, 1.5 tsp
- salt, pinch
- cocoa, 1 tsp
- butter, 100 g
- sugar or honey, 100 g
- egg, 2 pcs.
- powdered sugar, ½ tbsp.
- lemon juice, 1 tbsp.
Cooking:
Sift flour, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, baking powder or soda, a pinch of salt, cocoa into a bowl. Add soft cubes of butter and mix the dough with your hands - you should get a crumbly mass. Then add sugar or honey, one egg (leave the second for protein glaze or lubrication of gingerbread to make them shine) and knead the dough. Roll it into a ball, wrap it in cling film and refrigerate for two hours. After that, roll out the dough and cut out the gingerbread cookies using the templates that you can find at the end of the article. Sprinkle a baking sheet with flour (or cover with parchment paper) and put the gingerbread cookies on it. Bake in the oven at 180 degrees for about 15 minutes.
Chilled gingerbread must be painted with protein glaze. To do this, beat one protein to stable peaks (this is when it does not pour out of the bowl, if you raise it above your head), gradually adding powdered sugar. At the end, add lemon juice and beat again for 10 seconds. Put the resulting icing in a pastry bag and decorate the gingerbread cookies as your fantasy tells you. Let the frosting dry for about half an hour.
Source: schastie-mamy.ru
Light gingerbread
Ingredients:
- flour, 250 g
- ground ginger, 1.5 tsp
- ground cinnamon, 1 tsp
- ground nutmeg, ½ tsp
- ground cloves, ½ tsp
- baking powder or soda, ½ tsp
- yolks, 4 pcs.
- sugar, 150 g
- milk, 1 tbsp.
- honey, 150 g
- butter, 50 g
- protein, 2 pcs.
- powdered sugar, ½ tbsp.
- lemon juice, 1 tbsp.
Cooking:
Sift flour, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and baking powder (soda) into a bowl. Whisk the yolks with sugar. Pour milk, honey and butter into a saucepan. Heat it all up, stirring, bring to a homogeneous mass, but do not let it boil. Then pour this mixture and the yolks with sugar to the dry ingredients, knead the dough. After that, roll it out and cut out the gingerbread using the templates that you can find at the end of the article. Lay the cookies on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Bake in the oven at 200 degrees for 15 minutes. Decorate the cooled gingerbread cookies with protein glaze - in the same way as described in the previous recipe.
Increasingly on New Year and Christmas bake gingerbread. Housewives purchase molds in advance so that the treat is not only tasty, but also beautiful. The kids really like gingerbread men. After all, you can still play with them! ..
famous confectioner Alexander Seleznev shared signature recipe making gingerbread men.
Instagram @chefalexmonaco
Dough Ingredients:
- 350 g honey
- 125 g brown sugar (you can also use white sugar)
- 125 g butter
- 540 g flour
- 2 teaspoons of soda (extinguish with lemon juice)
- 1 st. a spoonful of a mixture of different spices (cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, cardamom, ginger)
- 1 egg
- Glaze Ingredients:
- 1 egg white
- 1 st. a spoonful of lemon juice
- 180 g powdered sugar
Cooking:
- Mix honey, sugar and butter in a saucepan. Then, stirring constantly, heat the mixture until the oil dissolves.
- In a separate container, add soda to the flour, previously quenched with lemon juice.
- Pour the heated mixture of honey, sugar and butter into the flour. Add fragrant spices and an egg. Knead the dough.
- Leave the dough overnight room temperature. (And this is the first professional secret from Alexander Seleznev. After all, many housewives leave the dough to “rest” in the refrigerator.) Then roll it out, cut out the little men and bake for 12 minutes at a temperature of 180 degrees.
- Cool the cakes and paint with glaze.
Instagram @chefalexmonaco
The confectioner also spoke about the secret of its preparation:
Made from raw protein, powdered sugar and lemon juice. The last ingredient must be added - with it the glaze will harden faster. Powdered sugar should be taken as small as possible so that there are no grains in the glaze later. And eggs are always the freshest, dietary ones, they are the safest.
When you beat the protein and add the powder, the icing should not drain from the whisk, but solidify on it in a dense triangle. So the amount of powder must be adjusted by eye, put more - the glaze will harden in a lump, less - it will turn out liquid.
Once the icing is kneaded, pour it into a confectionery syringe or bag, and cover the rest with cling film - otherwise it will dry out quickly, dry pieces will come across in it and get stuck in the syringe or bag.
Instagram @margo_dibrova
Some subscribers of Alexander Seleznev's personal blog admitted that they had already tried gingerbread made according to this recipe. Here is one of the reviews:
Thanks a lot for the recipe! Gingerbread cookies are fragrant and do not dry for a long time, it is a pleasure to work with this dough.
Do you bake gingerbread men for the New Year?
In addition to products, the following materials may come in handy for making cookies, gingerbread, houses:
1. Cookie cutters (very handy if you're cooking with your kids)
2. Or printouts of templates (can be downloaded from the Internet)
3. You can use children's molds from kits for creativity
4. Baking paper
6. Pastry bags for painting
7. Or bags of food bags, office files or baking paper.
8. Food colorings or sugar pencils
9. Confectionery sprinkles
10. And of course, prescription products.
Recipes for Christmas and New Year's gingerbread, there are a lot of cookies and there are different national traditions. Let's start with gingerbread and houses.
gingerbread
Soft fragrant gingerbread cookies have long become a symbol of Christmas. Gingerbread baking is an art that has been especially developed in the last century, since gingerbread has been gaining popularity in Europe. In Medieval Europe, where fairs were widespread, gingerbread was sold in various forms, often gilded and decorated with spices. The fairs became known as "Ginger Fairs" and their participants bought gingerbread as a present from the fair.
Nuremberg in Germany is known as "Gingerbread Capital of the World" due to its central location in the northern trade routes. It was here that the art of making gingerbread of exquisite shapes and ornaments appeared. German fairy tale about "Hanz and Gretel", in which children discovered a house built entirely of gingerbread dough, sweets and sweet pies, marked the beginning of the tradition of creating various buildings from gingerbread dough.
Nowadays, for many, gingerbread is associated with Christmas, but in fact it is delicious and original gift at any time of the year - a treat for the whole family. Whether it's a whole castle or a gingerbread cookie wrapped in pretty paper or in a box and tied with a ribbon, this is a very nice gift. WE WORK WITH GINGER DOUGH There are a few rules to remember when working with gingerbread dough for the first time:
1. You may find it easier to roll out the dough in a large layer and cut with a cookie cutter on a baking sheet so that the products are not distorted when you transfer them from the table to the baking sheet.
2. Unless the recipe says otherwise, leave some space on the baking sheet between the gingerbread cookies so they can rise. 3. Gingerbread, unlike other cookies, does not become dense and crispy when taken out of the oven. So it's very hard to tell if it's done, especially since the baking time depends so much on the oven. As a rule, if the gingerbread has slightly risen and browned around the edges, it is ready.
4. Leave it on the baking sheet for a few minutes, during which it will begin to become crispy (if the gingerbread is still soft, return it to the oven for a few minutes). It is very common for gingerbread to lose its shape during baking, but this can be easily fixed by trimming it properly after baking. 5. Large flat pieces of gingerbread must be refrigerated and stored on a flat surface, otherwise their shape will be distorted. It may be more convenient to bake the gingerbread the day before decorating. If you do this, let it cool completely and then wrap it in parchment or plastic wrap.
RECIPE FOR THE CHRISTMAS Gingerbread Wreath look
RECIPE GINGERBERRY NECKLACE look
Gingerbread recipe "PUZZLE GAME" look .
RECIPE Gingerbread STAINED GLASS FROM LOLLIPOPS look
RECIPE GINGERBOOT look .
RECIPE OF GINGER COOKIES FROM YULIA VYSOTSKA
RECIPE OF GINGERBERRY AND CHOCOLATE COOKIES FOR DECORATION OF THE CHRISTMAS FROM ALEXANDER SELEZNEV
LENTEN CHRISTMAS COOKIES RECIPE
gingerbread house recipe
RECIPE OF GINGERBERRY AND HONEY SUGAR DOUGH
RECIPE "GINGERY HOUSE-HUT"
RECIPE "GINGERY VASES"
RECIPE "POMORIAN KOZULES"
Kozuli or goats - made from dough, decorated and baked figurines. Name roe deer formed not from a word goat or roe, but from the Pomeranian denoting "curl", "snake"
Roe deer were originally a national delicacy of Pomors (inhabitants of the Arkhangelsk province), who made them only for Christmas. At the moment, roes are made in the Arkhangelsk and Murmansk regions, as well as in the Urals. Kozul is also considered to be a kind of gingerbread. Roe deer made by children are also used as toys.
NIKOLAICHIKI for Saint Nicholas Day
Saint Nicholas Day is not only children's holiday. The morning of December 19 is also eagerly awaited by adults. Firstly, to see the joyful and enthusiastic faces of their children, and secondly, in the hope that the Wonderworker Nicholas in the person of a husband or wife, daughter or son will also reward them for good behavior.
The most popular gifts on this day, both in the Orthodox and Catholic worlds, are toys, sweets, cakes, fruits, nuts, etc. But among the Slavs, kind Nikolai gave obedient children also "Nikolaychiks" - honey cookies.
It is necessary to prepare "Nikolaychiki" for this magical holiday with your own hands. Every nation has its own traditional recipe, which has some distinctive features. But the meaning and purpose of making gingerbread is the same - to honor the memory of St. Nicholas, who is the guardian and protector of our children.
RECIPE NIKOLAICHIKOV we look
PAINTING OF gingerbread and cookies
HOW TO MAKE A SNOWMAN
Aising at home
Idea from last year, but this video has ideas on how to decorate cookies.
And finally, a small selection of Christmas gingerbread and cookie painting ideas for your inspiration!
New Year's shooting is a great occasion to meet friends. Magazine OK! decided to arrange a small holiday for his authors - Alexander Seleznev and Yana Laputina, who are more common abroad than in Moscow. At the Balcony restaurant, culinary gurus and beauty experts shared with OK! with their childhood dreams and prepared a gingerbread house.
Pavel Tantserev The New Year decorations of the Balcony restaurant inspired a special mood for creating culinary miracles. This is probably why Alexander and Yana's gingerbread house turned out to be a little fabulous.
A lexander, Yana, tell me, please, have you ever celebrated the New Year in an unusual setting?
Yana: I am a terrible conservative, so I always celebrate the New Year with my family in Moscow. True, once my husband and I had a non-standard decision to fry kebabs in the yard of our house for the New Year. And everything would be fine, but the house is located on Tverskaya, a five-minute drive from Red Square. At midnight, we, as expected, celebrated the New Year at home, and an hour later, when our friends pulled up to us, we all together pulled the barbecue out into the street, put the French champagne in a snowdrift to cool and began to play snowballs, a lot of amusing neighbors in that holiday night. (Smiling.)
Alexander: And I'm not as conservative as Yana, and I like to celebrate the New Year in different countries. True, now I am more and more inclined to believe that the sensations are brighter when you celebrate in the winter, and not under the hot sun. In his youth, he always spent this holiday with his family, preparing salads, duck, and cakes. Now, on December 31, there is no energy left for culinary exploits: every year in mid-December my food show takes place in Gostiny Dvor, and this requires serious preparation. So at the end of December, I usually want to escape from the pre-New Year's fuss. For several years in a row I ran away to Barbados. My friends and I even have a tradition of celebrating the New Year on this island in accordance with different time zones, that is, our holiday stretches for a whole day, and by the time the Barbadian New Year comes, forces are usually running out. (Laughs.) I also remember when I worked as a pastry chef at the Alexandria coffee house, on the last day of the outgoing year, due to the large number of orders, I was able to leave the coffee house only at ten in the evening. I got into a taxi and got stuck in a traffic jam on the Enthusiasts Highway. There he met the New Year.
Photo: Pavel Tantserev
What do you associate this holiday with?
A .: I associate it with the aroma of baking: in addition to salads and hot dishes, my mother and I always made a lot of desserts - necessarily a honey cake and gingerbread.
Me: And my mother bakes a pig every time. Generally our New Year's table quite ascetic. In addition to the pig, it has jelly, Olivier with crab meat and champagne. We have long ceased to build pyramids of salads and snacks - it seems to me that this is a relic of the Soviet past.
That is, you do not take any breaks for detox after long holidays?
I .: In food, I used to control myself, but it’s not always possible to refuse another glass of champagne on New Year’s week. So as soon as the holidays subside, on the sixth of January I will get on a plane and fly to Germany, where I will drink mineral water and bathe in mineral springs.
A .: And for me, the New Year is a holiday of permissiveness: I eat whatever I want, and from the second of January - a new life. (Laughs.)
Do you remember what gifts you asked Santa Claus as a child?
A .: The most desired gifts were a dog and a bicycle. And I got both! I found a new bike under the tree almost every year, as I grew out of the old one. But Grandfather Frost always brought me a bicycle with a frame, but I wanted without it, so I complained about Grandfather Frost to my grandmother. (Smiling.) I still believe in miracles. I have a tradition: every year on December 31st I make a wish list. Not gifts, but desires: what I want to achieve next year, what projects to implement. I put this list in a Japanese vase and hide it so that no one at home can find it. Believe it or not, every year these wishes come true.
Y.: I had a story with skates: I really wanted to receive them as a gift - they were in short supply then. I remember that my parents could not immediately agree with Santa Claus, and he brought them to me only a year later. And everything worked out with them right away - probably because my dad was great at skating. This winter I will actively train with my three-year-old daughter, who started skating a year ago. In general, Teya shares many of my hobbies. Just recently, while my grandmother did not see, she climbed into her mother's cosmetic bag with her favorite palettes and lipsticks and made herself such an expressive make-up that at any Halloween party she would be mistaken for her own. (Laughs.)
Does Thea already know what she wants to receive as a gift for the New Year?
Me: Of course! She very clearly expressed her desire six months ago. Said, "When it's New Year's, I want a live pink horse." With the approach of December 31, my husband and I are in a state of panic, because we still have no idea how to help Grandfather Frost find this wonderful animal. (Laughs.)
Photo: Pavel Tantserev
Gingerbread house
Ingredients:
- 350 g honey
- 250 g wheat flour
- 250 g rye flour
- 125 g brown sugar
- 25 g cocoa
- 125 g butter
- 1 egg
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1/4 tsp carnations
- 1/4 tsp ground ginger
- 1/4 tsp nutmeg
- 1 tsp soda
- 3 eggs
- 300 g powdered sugar
- 3 art. l. lemon juice
- liquid purple food coloring
Cooking:
- Pour honey into a saucepan, put butter, pour brown sugar. Heat the mixture, stirring constantly. In a separate container, mix both types of flour with soda.
- Pour warmed honey with butter and sugar into the mixture, add egg, cocoa, nutmeg, cloves, cinnamon, ginger. Knead the dough in a mixer, wrap it in a film and place it in the refrigerator for 2 hours. Roll out the dough to a thickness of 5 mm.
- Using a cardboard stencil, we cut out four walls and the roof of the house. We send for 20 minutes to bake at a temperature of 200 ° C. For glaze, separate the protein from the yolk, add lemon juice and beat, gradually pouring in powdered sugar.
- In a separate container, mix half of the glaze with the dye. We begin to paint the cooled gingerbread cookies. We cover each wall of the house with purple glaze and draw white windows. We glue the walls of the house with glaze, and cover the roof with it.
