Happy birthday gingerbread. Gingerbread Cookie

Truffles or fragrant oil that you made yourself. They are your attention and care. Bake some gingerbread cookies to your friends this year! I have a simple and reliable recipe.

Baking cookies on Christmas Eve is an old European tradition. German gingerbreads lebkuchen were the first to appear, they are distant relatives of our mint and berry jams. By the 16th century, a variety of cookies were already being baked throughout Europe. In Germany, in addition to gingerbread, they made spritz cookies with butter, in Sweden they made sweets with black pepper and ginger, and in Norway - openwork waffles with the aroma of citrus fruits and cardamom.

In England, the so-called "sugar" cookies, sugar cookies, have come into fashion, they put a lot of sugar in them. Even the small animal-shaped cookies (the edible zoo) that we all adored as children also go back to the tradition of celebrating European Christmas. Bake as many as you can so your tree gets a few. Cookies do a great job as toys!

In December in Europe and America, cookies are everywhere. It is sold in confectioneries and bakeries, cooked in home kitchens. Since the 1960s, there has been a tradition in the United States to exchange cookies: girls get together, have fun and share pastries with each other. Everyone goes home with a whole box different cookies, as if she had stopped by a candy store or hadn't left the kitchen for a week. Once I was invited to such a party. It was sweet, noisy, smelled warm spices and champagne. True, then I could not look at cookies for 11 months.

The most interesting thing is that there are not so many basic dough recipes. The differences are rather in the form of cookies, decoration and size of edible beads. I'm cooking plain dough, not too sweet, with a minimum amount of butter, because the icing will add sweetness. I put more, especially ginger, because Christmas cookies should pinch a little in the nose. Believe me, ginger can do it!

The dough is prepared in just ten minutes. Combine all ingredients and wrap in cling film. I advise you to remove the dough for half an hour in the refrigerator so that it hardens slightly - it will be easier to roll out and cut out the figures.

Another trick in the dough rolling technique. You may want to dust your work surface with flour, but it's better to do otherwise: cut two sheets of baking paper, put a ball of dough between them and roll it out with a rolling pin. Firstly, it is very convenient - it is easy to handle the layer, twist it to roll out evenly. Secondly, this way the dough will not absorb excess flour. In addition, then you do not have to wash the countertop.

I learned to bake from Western magazines. Beautiful photos with snowmen and Christmas trees inspire you to put on an apron! In all foreign pictures, cookies are of a delicate coffee color, but this color will not work with the basic recipe. It will be light, like a loaf of gray bread. How many gingerbread men I baked until I figured out that the British add a little dark syrup, and the Americans add thick blue-black molasses! Our grandmothers tinted the dough with burnt, burning sugar in a frying pan, and mothers - with cocoa powder.

The simplest thing is to add a little cocoa to the dough, it will give it a shade, like a cookie in a magazine picture. If you want, you can make a burnt, but I advise you to save your energy for decorating the gingerbread cookies. Prepare the icing, color it with various food colorings, fill the pastry bags and remember what you were taught in art class. Create! There are no rules in decorating cookies!

My advice to you: bake with your kids. They will be happy if you trust them to cut and decorate cookies. Your kitchen will also like it - it will be filled with the aromas of the holiday. Don't pull New Year already quite close!

Gingerbread Cookie

Ingredients(about 18 cookies)

flour - 250 g

butter room temperature- 70 g

brown sugar - 80 g

egg - 1 pc.

cocoa - 1 tbsp. a spoon

ground ginger - 1 teaspoon

fresh grated ginger - 1 teaspoon

ground cinnamon - 1 teaspoon

ground cloves - 0.5 tsp

soda - 0.5 tsp

for decoration

powdered sugar - 250 g

protein big egg(about 40 g) - 1 piece

lemon juice - 1 tbsp. a spoon

warm water - 2-3 tbsp. spoons

food colorings

beads and snowflakes

Cooking

1. Cut the butter into cubes, combine with sugar, egg and beat with a mixer for 2-3 minutes - you should get a homogeneous mass.

2. Add flour, soda, spices, ginger and cocoa. Stir (I use a planetary stand mixer). Wrap the dough in cling film and refrigerate for half an hour.

3. Divide the dough into two parts. Lay the first part on a large sheet of baking paper, flatten with your hand, cover with another sheet and roll out with a rolling pin. You should get an even layer 5-7 mm thick.

4. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees. Line a baking sheet baking paper. Make figures from the dough (if desired, pierce holes for the braid with a straw), put them on a baking sheet and put them in the oven for 10 minutes. If the cookie is thicker than 7mm, it will take an extra 3-4 minutes.

5. While the first batch is baking, do the same with the second batch of dough. If the dough is too soft, put it back in the refrigerator. Let the cookies cool down and start decorating.

6. Combine all glaze ingredients, beat with a mixer for 8-10 minutes. You should get a dense glossy mass. Run a knife over the icing, it should keep a trace for about 10 seconds - it is convenient to draw with such icing. If the icing is runny, add more powdered sugar and beat with a mixer. If, on the contrary, it is too dense, pour in a tablespoon of warm water.

7. Lay the icing in bowls and paint with food coloring. Then transfer to pastry bags and start decorating. If you want to cover the gingerbread with an even layer of glaze, first draw the edges, and then fill in the middle. You can level the surface with a toothpick or brush. Decorate the cookies with edible beads, snowflakes and leave for 3-4 hours for the icing to harden. Store cookies in a container with a tight lid.

Christmas and New Year holidays are a time of miracles and an opportunity to enjoy the sweetest desserts prepared by oneself. Many housewives bake fragrant gingerbread cookies as a treat for the holiday. Such homemade baking turns out to be special. At first glance, it is very simple and unpretentious. However, its pleasant aroma of gingerbread cookies creates in the house that excellent atmosphere of waiting for a miracle. By the way, there are several variations of this dessert. Below are step-by-step recipes for gingerbread cookies with photos and several videos. So every culinary specialist will be able to please his loved ones with a crumbly, melting in the mouth, fragrant dessert.

Classic gingerbread cookies for New Year and Christmas

Delicious classic recipe gingerbread cookies for the New Year and Christmas holidays is a great opportunity to please your favorite sweet tooth with delicacies of your own production.

Cooking time -2 hours.

The number of servings is 10.

Ingredients

To make a classic gingerbread cookie, you will need to use the following ingredients:

• egg - 1 pc.;
• butter - 60 g;
• baking powder for dough - 2 pinches;
• natural honey - 50 g;
• flour - 180 g;
• cinnamon - ½ tsp;
• ground dry ginger - ½ tsp;
• granulated sugar- 40 g;
• powdered sugar - for decoration.

Cooking method

The classic New Year's gingerbread cookie recipe is easy to make.

1. The first step is to prepare the oil - it must be chilled. The flour will need to be sifted. Both components must be folded into a common dish.

They are sprinkled with cinnamon and ground ginger. The mixture is diluted with baking powder for dough.

On a note! If desired, you can dilute the recipe for a Christmas dessert with lemon zest, ground nutmeg, cardamom and cloves. They will make the taste of cookies more spicy and rich.

The last egg is driven into the mass.

With a whisk or blender (or mixer), the components are thoroughly mixed. The result is a mass that resembles a crumb in consistency.

The dough should be collected in a room. This must be done as quickly as possible so that it does not begin to melt from the heat of the hands. It is recommended to roll out the dough between two layers of food parchment. The optimal layer thickness is at least 3 mm. Then the workpiece is placed in the refrigerator for 35 minutes.

Directly on the parchment, the cookies are transferred to a baking sheet. The top sheet of paper should be removed.

The oven is preheated. It should be heated up to 180 degrees. In this mode, gingerbread cookies, cooked according to the classic European recipe, are baked for about 10 minutes. It cools down on the grate.

Decorate the finished dessert, which is so relevant during Christmas and new year holidays, you can powdered sugar. Cocoa powder or pre-made icing is also suitable.

Such a delicious and beautiful gingerbread cookie is suitable not only as a treat, but also as a quality new year gift friends and acquaintances!

Gingerbread cookies in the form of men for the New Year

One of the most popular recipes classic gingerbread cookies for the New Year and Christmas offers to bake a dessert in the form of little funny men. Such a delicacy will become a real "hit" of the festive table.

Cooking time -1 hour.

The number of servings is 8.

Ingredients

To bake this version of gingerbread cookies, you need:

• granulated sugar - 120 g;
• soda - 1.5 tsp;
• flour - 500 g;
• honey - 1 tbsp.;
• butter - 120 g;
• ginger - 1 tsp;
• salt - 1 pinch;
• baking powder for dough - 1 tsp.

On a note! For the glaze with which to decorate gingerbread men, you should use 210 g of powdered sugar, food coloring and protein from 1 large chicken egg.

Cooking method

Gingerbread cookies in the form of funny and cute little men are a great treat during the celebration of the New Year and Christmas. At the same time, it is quite easy to bake it.

1. First you need to prepare all the ingredients indicated in the recipe.

Mix sugar and honey. Soda and salt are added to them. All spices and butter are added here. The mixture must be put on fire. The mass should be systematically heated until foam forms on its surface.

The composition must be slightly cooled. Use a thermometer to monitor the temperature. Optimal mode mixture - 40 degrees. Now baking powder and flour are poured into the mass. An egg is beaten into the mixture.

You must manually knead the dough. It should be elastic and soft.

The resulting tender composition is rolled into a layer. Its thickness should be about 4-5 mm. With the help of molds or stencils, little men should be cut out of it.

The oven heats up to 200 degrees. Our ginger figurines are baked in it for 10 minutes. Cookies very carefully transferred to a plate. He needs to cool down.

In the meantime, you can make the frosting.

It must be made from powdered sugar and protein. The resulting icing is divided into 4 servings. Each has its own shade. food coloring. All types of glaze are shifted according to food bags and secured with clips.

It remains only to decorate the finished gingerbread cookies, guided by your own imagination.

Gingerbread cookies, decorated with icing, are very spectacular and appetizing, festive. It can be served at the table for the New Year or Christmas, or treat loved ones.

Simple gingerbread cookies for the New Year

This option for making gingerbread cookies can be safely considered the simplest and easiest. Even if it never occurred to you to bake such a sweet for Christmas or New Year, don't worry. You will definitely succeed at the highest level. In addition, such pastries can be decorated with icing - it will turn out original and very beautiful.

Cooking time -20 minutes.

The number of servings is 10.

Ingredients

To prepare a sweet holiday gingerbread cookie, you should prepare the following ingredients:

• granulated sugar - 100 g;
• flour - 250 g;
• ginger root - 15 g;
• margarine - 100 g;
• cinnamon - ½ tsp;
• egg - 1 pc.;
• nutmeg ground - 1 pinch;
• honey - 1 tbsp. l.;
• sour cream - 1 tbsp. l.;
• cardamom - to taste.

Cooking method

This easy Christmas gingerbread cookie recipe is easy to implement on own kitchen in an extremely short time.

1. Peel and mince the ginger. The spice is mixed with 2 large spoons of flour. A tablespoon of granulated sugar is poured into them. Everything is interrupted by a blender or food processor to the state of crumbs. It is very important that the mass is homogeneous.

The rest of the flour is mixed with salt. Chilled margarine is laid out in the composition, which can be replaced with butter if desired. Here comes granulated sugar (only 100 g). The resulting mixture should be rubbed manually. The crumb should be small. Then honey and sour cream are laid out in it. The mass is stirred, and an egg is driven into it.

The dough will need to be kneaded quickly. It needs to be rolled into a large bun, after which there is no need to wait at all. You can immediately cut out cookies and bake them.

On a note! If you do not have time to work with dessert, then you can wrap the lump of dough in cling film and put it in the refrigerator. It is allowed to continue working with it after a few hours or even a few days.

The dough should be rolled out into a layer. The optimal thickness is 4 mm. To cut cookies, you can use hand-drawn templates (stencils) on cardboard or ready-made molds.

Note! If you use to form ginger New Year's cookies self-made stencils from cardboard, then first sprinkle a layer of dough with flour. Otherwise, the templates may stick.

The baking sheet is lined with parchment. Dough blanks are laid out on top. They need to be baked in an oven heated to 200 degrees. Baking time - 10 minutes. Cookies need to be pulled out of oven when it just starts to turn golden. It should cool down on a flat work surface.

While the cookies are still bitter, brush them with a slightly beaten yolk (you can beat a whole egg). This will give the baked goods a glossy, attractive sheen. Additionally, you can make icing.

Video recipes

If you use the suggested video instructions, then baking gingerbread cookies for New Year and Christmas will not be difficult for you:

There is a story: a long time ago, in a small kitchen in a monastery, a man was kneading dough. But the room was so small that he accidentally dropped a whole jar of ground ginger into the dough. The man was upset and looked out the window at the moon and stars for a long time, thinking about what to make from the “spoiled dough”. As a result, stars, angels, a month were made - the most fragrant and crispy cookies! Often, as a result of simple accidents, real magic occurs! And today, on the eve of Christmas, all people bake tart gingerbread cookies.

The dough according to this recipe is good because it will fit both thin crispy cookies and plump gingerbread cookies. The finished result will depend on the thickness of the rolled dough. But these gingerbread cookies taste just as magical, no matter how thick they are.

Dough Ingredients:

• Fragrant honey (I recommend taking buckwheat) - 3 tbsp. l. with a slide
• Sugar sand (brown is better, but white is also possible) - 150 g
• Butter - 80 g
• Eggs (I use medium, category C1) -2 pcs.
• sugar with natural vanilla- 1 tsp with a slide (I use Dr Oetker), can be replaced with vanilla extract (1 tsp)
• Flour - 2.5 cups (I needed about 400 g)
• Soda - 0.5 tsp (use only quicklime)
• Cinnamon - 1 tsp
• Ground ginger - 0.5 tsp (can be replaced with 1/3 tsp. fresh ginger, crushed in a blender)
• Coriander - 0.5 tsp

Glaze Ingredients:

• Egg white - 1 pc.
• Powdered sugar - 200 g
• Lemon juice - 0.5 tsp

You can use any other spices you like. If you have a mortar with a pestle, it is better to grind cardamom, cloves, cinnamon yourself - this way they will be twice as fragrant than ground ones from the store.

How to make gingerbread cookies (step by step recipe with photos)

Pour water (two fingers thick) into a small saucepan or stewpan and set to boil on fire. There will be a steam bath for gingerbread dough. While the water is boiling, let's proceed to the great sacrament - mixing the ingredients.

In a metal bowl, break eggs (2 pcs.), Add granulated sugar (150 g). I did gingerbread dough according to this recipe with both brown and white sugar. With brown it turns out tastier, a caramel color and flavor appear.

Add sugar with natural vanilla (1 tsp) to the bowl.

We send here baking soda(0.5 tsp)

We send spices to the dough (I have cinnamon -1 tsp, ground ginger -0.5 tsp, coriander -0.5 tsp)

Pour honey (3 tablespoons) to the rest of the ingredients for the dough. Stir with a whisk.

Put the bowl on steam bath(You need to make sure that the bottom of the bowl does not touch the boiling water). As soon as the water in the saucepan boils, reduce the heat to medium and begin to stir the contents of the bowl.

Keep the mixture on steam bath at least 10 minutes, it will slightly increase in volume and be covered with soft foam. All grains of sugar should dissolve, and spices should fully open up and give their flavor to the dough. Add a piece of butter (80 g) and stir.

In the meantime, sift 2.5 cups of flour. Take the bowl off the heat and add one glass.

Stir and leave the mixture to cool.

When the dough becomes a little warm, continue to add flour in parts, constantly mixing and controlling the density of the dough. It should be sticky and tender.

Leave the dough for half an hour at room temperature (you can cover cling film so as not to fade).

Making gingerbread cookies

We put the oven to warm up to 180 ° C, and we ourselves proceed to rolling out the dough and cutting out the cookies. I advise you to roll out on a silicone mat or on parchment, and then bake on it (this way we exclude the deformation of cookies during transfer).

After aging, the dough becomes even more elastic and almost does not stick to your hands. Look at it in cross section!

Using a rolling pin, roll out the cake with a thickness of 0.4-0.5 cm. If you want thin and crispy cookies, you need to roll out a layer no thicker than 0.2-0.3 mm. Squeeze out figures from the dough with the help of molds.

By the way, in these two photos (above and below) you can see the difference between the test on the usual and on brown sugar. In the lower photo, the color of the test is richer and, in my opinion, more beautiful.

We leave the figures on the parchment, and roll the scraps into a ball and turn them into a cake again. Try not to place the cookies too close together on the baking sheet so they don't stick together. Because of the soda in the dough, the cookies increase significantly in volume.

We bake cookies for 5-7 minutes until slightly ruddy at a temperature of 180 degrees.

Cool the finished cookies on a wire rack (this will allow them to cool evenly without getting wet from the bottom).

Icing for honey cookies

Carefully separate the protein from the yolk.

Sift into a bowl of protein powdered sugar(in total, you will need about 200 g, but you should not add everything at once). Add about 5 tbsp. l. Powdered sugar must be sifted (this way we exclude lumps and get a homogeneous glaze).

Stir with a mixer at the lowest speed (or grind with a spoon).

Add to the glaze 1 tsp. lemon juice, stir again.

It turns out a thick, shiny glaze that dries very quickly (the bowl of glaze should be constantly covered with cling film).

Transfer the icing to a piping bag, cut off the tip and decorate the cooled gingerbread cookies.

If the icing seems thick to work with, you can add a few drops of regular warm water and stir until smooth. As a rule, the thickness of the glaze for drawing small details and for pouring is different. Need more to fill liquid glaze which can easily be made by adding water. The most important thing is to be careful when adding water drop by drop.

If it so happens that you have thinned the glaze too much, add a little powdered sugar.

Instead of pastry bag You can use a regular baking paper cornet.

Show your creativity in painting gingerbread! Entrust this business to children, they will love it! Gingerbread cookies are suitable for decorating the Christmas tree, they can be eaten with milk or cocoa, it will look great as a gift to family and friends.

Cookies should be stored in a closed container so that they do not become hard.

Without gingerbread men it is impossible to imagine the New Year holidays! During the long winter holidays, our apartment turns into a gingerbread factory. You can look into our refrigerator at any time of the day, there will be fragrant gingerbread dough. And the most interesting thing is that gingerbread cookies seem so fragrant and tasty only in winter, and only on New Year's Eve! Gingerbread cookies, as well as, are a sweet tradition that is passed down from year to year, from one generation to the next.

Enjoy your meal!
For cookie lovers, check out the recipe. oatmeal cookies on our You Tube video channel:

I look forward to your feedback in the recipe, comments and photos of cookies. I am very interested to see your masterpieces, share your New Year mood!

If you will post photos on Instagram, please indicate the tag #pirogeevo or #pirogeevo so that I can find your photos on the network. Thank you!

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Ding-ding-lin! This New Year is rushing, ringing bells, snow creaks under the runners of the team! It smells of frost, tangerines and gingerbread! Ding-ding-lin!

The holidays are getting closer and closer, the aromas of spices and traditional Christmas pastries are in the air, you want to sing, dance and just smile for no reason. Ding-dee-lin, the house is filled with comfort, gingerbread men settled in it, joyfully and well, how! Do you want me to share my feelings with you? Here, take it: a couple of thin crispy cookies, a plaid blanket and a silly New Year's comedy with indispensable Santa Clauses, Christmas trees and ... and gingerbread cookies!

Ingredients

• 100 g butter;
• 1 st. l. "with the top" of honey;
• 2 tbsp. l. molasses or any syrup;
• 100 g dark sugar
• 2 tsp ground dry ginger;
• 1.5 tsp cinnamon;
• 1 tsp spices to taste
• 1 egg;
• 1/3 tsp salt;
• 300 g flour.

Cooking classic gingerbread cookies

Put butter in a bowl. Ice cream, softened, sliced, grated - it doesn't matter. I had it straight out of the freezer big piece broke off.

And add molasses. Considering that the average housewife in the kitchen, most likely, like me, does not have such a treasure, we replace the molasses with any thick and dark syrup. I mixed carob and date syrup in equal proportions, rosehip syrup is suitable, you can take maple, cherry, cherry, blackberry, blueberry. And you can - it's simple.

Honey. Thick and, of course, dark is better (for example, buckwheat). I had a linden one - incredibly tasty and fragrant, it opened up in a gingerbread cookie in a completely unusual way, gave it a subtle flavor and a subtle aroma.

And put all this luxury on water bath. It is not necessary to warm up for a long time - it is enough for the oil to combine with honey and syrup (molasses).

Remove from water bath and add sugar, salt and…

... and spices.

I’ll probably dwell on them a little longer, because spices are the main thing in the gingerbread cookie recipe.

Spices for cookies

As far as I know, there is no classic and single combination of spices for gingerbread cookies. All recipes and sources give different sets of ingredients and their proportions. Cinnamon and ginger are essential components, all the rest change and “run”. I personally see the only way out is to try, try and try. Start small - make cookies with cinnamon, ginger and, for example, cardamom. This is not such a rich palette, of course, but you can clearly isolate all three spices and understand if your taste buds cardamom (of course, you should not add it in the amount of a teaspoon, the third part will be enough). If you make friends with cardamom, combine it next time with cloves, then add a little allspice, try black pepper and so on. In the end, you will find "your" combination of spices, which will be part of your personal signature recipe.

There is another point that is not customary to write about. Do you always cook with apothecary precision? Today I ran out of cinnamon, and the liver got a little less than a spoon and a half. And yesterday there was no pink pepper, and I took a tiny pinch of chili. Sometimes there are no cloves at home - and I take a little more cardamom. Or I replace it with a completely unexpected and non-standard coriander or star anise. I do not follow the letter of the recipe exactly to the last comma, I use common sense and always boldly experiment. And I advise you!

So, spices for gingerbread cookies. Ground.
You can put them in a mortar and grind with a pestle. I don't like it - with this exposure, the spices release a lot of oil, it turns out well, but not perfect. By the way, when adding the resulting mass to the dough, it is imperative to sift it through a strainer, shake your head sadly, looking at the remainder, then grind it again in a mortar, sift again. And still get a pretty large balance.

Can be ground in a coffee grinder. I have a special mill, which is essentially the same thing. It turns out a very fine, dry, pleasant mixture.

Putting it all together, I re-sifted - believe me, the pieces of cloves on the teeth do not bring much pleasure.

I make an exception for black pepper - but even that is just because I love this spice incredibly.

Gingerbread dough

So, add spices to the heated oil, syrup and honey, stir and leave to cool to room temperature. During this time, the sugar should completely melt.

Add the egg to the cooled mixture and stir until smooth.

We sift the flour.

And knead the dough - not dense, rather soft, tender and sticky.

We collect it in a lump and - read more carefully here! - as it should be thrown on the table. And once again - raise your hands higher and forcefully throw the dough down. And again - ten times. This moment is important: you will give the dough a special elasticity, it will become pliable and easy to work with.

We form a ball, hide it in a bag and send it in the refrigerator. For an hour or two - everyone writes like that and absolutely everyone recommends it. And if you're used to it, then do it.

I do not. Differences in working with chilled dough and I don’t see it as just mixed at all, so I start cutting immediately after kneading.

So, we separate a small piece of dough from the general piece.

cookie baking

And roll it out thinly. Thin is 1-2 mm. It is clear that later it is extremely difficult to transfer cookies cut from dough of such a thickness to a baking sheet, so I recommend rolling them out immediately on a sheet parchment paper.

And yes, once again: it should be subtle. Otherwise, you will not get gingerbread cookies, but gingerbread cookies - tasty and fragrant, but not crispy and sonorous.

Cut out shapes with cutters.

We remove the excess dough, collect it in a lump.

If desired, you can make cookies with a hole through which to thread the thread - decorated with icing, such Christmas decorations great to revive your Christmas tree.

We admire and send the baking sheet to the oven preheated to 190 degrees for 6 minutes.

Don't overdo it! The cookies are thin and burn quickly.

How to make gingerbread men

In anticipation of the upcoming holidays, I want to be especially kind, so, so be it, I will reveal one more secret today.

I hate extra dishes. A bunch of nice little things like, for example, a banana slicer makes me angry: I don’t like low-functional devices. New Year and Christmas themed cookie cutters are beautiful and undeniably wonderful, but you only need them once a year. Buy them so that for the rest of the 364 days they piss me off? No, quit! Nevertheless, all these glorious symbols of the New Year holidays - naive horses and pot-bellied snowmen, shaggy Santa Claus hats and cute mittens - are so cute that you still want them to appear in the house!

There is an exit.
I ask the Universal Mind what he thinks, for example, about the gingerbread man template, the Universal Mind quickly answers. As a rule, I like the answer - I save it on my computer, then open it in any image viewer, scale it according to my ideas about acceptable sizes for gingerbread men. Then I take a felt-tip pen and a piece of baking paper, put the sheet to the monitor and trace the contours of the figure. I cut out.

I roll out the dough - thin, remember? I put a template on top - parchment paper sticks perfectly to the dough prepared according to this gingerbread cookie recipe. And with a sharp knife I cut out a little man.

Everything is ready - you can bake. In the same way, rare bird animals, gift boxes and Santa Claus sleighs, huts on chicken legs and bags of sweets are cut out. By the way, it’s still better to just throw away the template after work - next year you will draw a new one.

In general, that's all. Cookies - thin, crispy and very fragrant - ready! It is incredibly similar to its Swedish progenitor - the legendary Pepperkakkor, which we know from the range of the IKEA network. In a tightly closed container, such gingerbread cookies can be stored indefinitely, but who will give it to him?

How to decorate gingerbread cookies

By the way, if you wish, you can decorate gingerbread cookies (such a name is also acceptable - although in our culinary tradition such pastries are more like cookies, with gingerbread it is partially related to the dough preparation technology, which is why many people call Pepperkakkor that way). To do this, take half the protein (20 g).

Beat it into a light foam.

Gradually add 100 g of powdered sugar, mix until smooth.

Roll a cornet out of parchment paper, fill it with icing and create! Weight per finished goods It dries quickly and stays on well without flaking or flaking.

OK it's all over Now. Create and surprise loved ones. Turn the holiday into a fairy tale: at least once a year every adult dreams of getting into it. So this is not a children's recipe - gingerbread Christmas trees, stars and gingerbread men:). Someday next time I'll tell you about cooking gingerbread- subscribe to updates).

The tradition of baking gingerbread on the eve of the New Year and Christmas came to us from Europe. Fragrant pastries, decorated with patterns of multi-colored glaze, sets in a festive mood, brings the atmosphere of a holiday and the atmosphere of a fairy tale. In this recipe I will show you how to bake gingerbread cookies and paint them. sugar icing. I will not languish and immediately get down to business.

To prepare gingerbread cookies with icing, we will take:

• Chicken egg - 2 pcs.
• Flour - 2.5 cups
• Starch - 0.5 cups (potato or corn - no difference)
• Butter - 0.5 packs (100 g)
• Natural honey - 3 tbsp. spoons
• Sugar - 0.5 cups (it is better to use brown for flavor and expressive color of cookies)
• Baking powder for dough - 1 teaspoon
• Aromatic spices: ginger, cinnamon, ground nutmeg - 1 teaspoon each
• Cocoa powder - 1 teaspoon
• Saffron natural - a few threads
• Cloves - 5 buds
• Salt - 1 pinch
• For glaze: Powdered sugar - 1 cup
• Lemon juice - 2 teaspoons
• Water - 1 tbsp. a spoon
• Food coloring, if you want to make a frosting of a certain color
• Baking paper
• Cooking envelope (you can use a regular bag for food products)

How to make gingerbread cookies with icing

1. To start, a few preparatory steps. Clove buds must be crushed with saffron threads in a mortar or with a coffee grinder. Cut butter at room temperature small pieces and turn it into a paste with a blender. Starting with the next step, everything must be done quickly enough, since the dough will melt, and after kneading we will send it to the refrigerator.
   
2. Now in the cup where we will knead the dough, we sift the dry ingredients: flour, starch (by the way, this secret ingredient needed so that our gingerbread cookies do not dry out quickly and remain soft inside for a long time), a pinch of salt, baking powder, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, cocoa, cloves and saffron. Mix thoroughly with a dry silicone or wooden spatula, add the butter, which we turned into a paste.
   
3. Next, add eggs, sugar, honey, and knead the dough. It turns out quite viscous, but moves away from the cup well. The color, as you can see, is saturated, closer to brown.
   
4. Now roll the dough into a ball with your hands, then divide in half. We roll each half of our gingerbread cookie dough into a layer about 1-1.5 cm thick with a rolling pin and place it in a plastic bag. Ready layers are sent to freezer for 15−20 minutes (temperature -16.-18°С). It should grab and be hard (but pliable, we won’t overfreeze) so that we can cut out the figures of our New Year's cookies.
   
5. We take out one layer of dough from the refrigerator, roll it out half a centimeter thick or a little less (the cookies will rise) and begin the creative process. Cut out dough using shapes beautiful cookies. After marking the dough, there are 2 options: you can remove the figures from the dough, or, on the contrary, remove the excess dough that is around the figures, and transfer the cookies to a sheet that we covered with baking paper. Thoroughly knead the rest of the dough with your hands, roll it into a ball again, roll it into a layer, as in step 4 and send it to the freezer. In the meantime, we take out the second layer and continue to cut out the figures. Repeat until you have used up all the dough.
   
6. I have both metal and plastic molds for cutting dough figures. In my opinion, both options are good, although some cooks prefer only metal ones. I have no such prejudices and therefore I used different forms for more figurines: Christmas trees, hedgehogs, squirrels, bears, hearts, stars, etc. Everything went into action!
   
7. We preheat the oven to 180 ° C (top and bottom heating) and send our gingerbread cookies to the oven for 8-10 minutes. It bakes almost instantly. I got 2 with a small sheet of cookies from the total amount of dough.
   
8. And now our gingerbread cookies are ready. Let cool for 5-7 minutes and remove from the paper, carefully shifting the cookies to cool. Not at each other, but definitely next to each other. In principle, if you do not plan to decorate with icing, you can stop there. Cookies can be stored in a box for 1.5-2 weeks. It perfectly retains its properties. If you decide to continue and make icing, read on 😉
   
9. To get a smooth shiny glaze we will mix powdered sugar, lemon juice (3 teaspoons) and 1 tablespoon of water in a cup. At first it may seem that there is not enough liquid for such an amount of powder, but this is an excellent combination obtained by experience. Lemon juice adds a pleasant acidity and shine. It is better to mix the glaze with a silicone or wooden spatula. At the end, add dye, according to the instructions.
   
10. Now we transfer the icing for our gingerbread cookies into a culinary bag. I use a regular food bag. I make a rounded cut on the upper part, and after filling the bag with glaze, at the tip, from where the glaze will be squeezed out, with the help of scissors I make an incision of 1.5-2 mm
    
11. And now we begin creative process- coating each gingerbread cookie with icing sugar. Here a real world opens up for a flight of fancy. How to paint cookies - decide for yourself. You can involve children and the whole family in this process. It will turn out quickly and in a variety of ways. I got it like this:
    

And now our gingerbread cookies with sugar icing are ready!

The aroma of spices, ginger, cloves, cinnamon and nutmeg that fills your home when making these cookies will help create a festive atmosphere and feel the approach of something unusual, almost fabulous!