Recipe for gingerbread cookies with "men" icing. Gingerbread men recipe

Ginger pastries- a favorite delicacy of Europeans, which first appeared in the form of “gingerbread men” at the court of Queen Elizabeth 1 - Her Majesty really loved to amaze foreign guests with desserts of unusual shapes.

Recipe " gingerbread men"the court cook kept it in the strictest confidence, but either there was a leak of information, or the people made up their own own way preparations, but these tasty and original pastries soon appeared among ordinary people.

Main ingredient

Scarce and expensive at all times oriental spices Knights brought them to Europe in sufficient quantities when returning from the Crusades.

Among this abundance of spices, fragrant and healthy ginger occupied not the last place.

After trying this amazing oriental product taste and positively assessed its qualities, European chefs and confectioners began to experiment, adding it to various dishes, including gingerbread “men” cookies.

From the height of the past centuries, it should be noted that the experiment was more than a success. After all, meat vegetable dishes with this spice, teas and other drinks based on it, as well as the notorious gingerbread “men” always remain in trend.

New Year's scent

IN European countries the recipe for “gingerbread men” is used only for special moments, which are considered Christmas new year holidays. If our main New Year's scents are spruce and tangerine, then good old Europe adheres to its centuries-old traditions, and on the eve of Christmas here you can smell the smell in every home homemade baked goods with notes of ginger.

European traditions are gradually migrating to us: everything more housewives on New Year's days they try to please their family with simple and at the same time original baked goods. Gingerbread cookies“little men” in some families becomes a signature dessert, relegating cakes and pastries to the background.

A little fairy tale

The already popular gingerbread cookies in the shape of men gained even greater recognition after the release of the famous cartoon “Shrek”. After watching, children began to demand gingerbread with renewed activity, and mothers began to enthusiastically bake or buy delicacies.

In our supermarkets, both gingerbread and the mold for the “gingerbread man” remain a scarce commodity, but in Europe and America they can be purchased almost everywhere.

Beliefs, signs, symbols associated with gingerbread

The shape of any baked goods does not appear out of nowhere, but is some kind of symbol designed to either protect against something or make desires come true.

The famous lark cookies, which our ancestors baked for saints or warm Alexei (different in different regions), were an undoubted harbinger of spring and warmth, Easter baking has always symbolized church domes, and Christmas - a holiday (cookies in the form of stars, snowflakes and the relatively recently appeared Santa Clauses).

But what do the little figures mean? Most likely, they symbolize the desire for abundance, which has become relevant since the time of famine in (1315), when in the minds of people it was associated with a sufficient amount of food. Accordingly, such a house must have an owner - a gingerbread man.

A little later, when the terrible hungry years were left behind, a dessert of this shape became a symbol of marriage for girls. They believed that if you eat gingerbread during the Christmas period, a wedding is guaranteed throughout the year.

Is it worth mentioning that the recipe for “ginger men” has changed over time, and today no one remembers what it was in its original form.

Is it possible to create a stencil for gingerbread cookies yourself?

It will be much easier to please your loved ones with such a dessert if the nearby supermarket has not only a set necessary products, but also suitable molds, with the help of which a dozen or two “men” can be created in five minutes.

But if you were unable to purchase them, then you can get out of the situation by creating a template with your own hands.

It should be noted that this is a very exciting and useful activity, especially if you involve children in it, who, as a rule, are the most happy about such a dessert as the “gingersnap man”. A stencil for a group with a baby can be made from ordinary cardboard. It is best to create several forms at once. A variety of “gingerbread men” will only decorate the table.

Of course, creating stencils on your own will take more time: first, the people need to be drawn, then cut out, and only then used for their intended purpose, using them to give the appropriate shape to the dough.

Gingerbread men recipe

By creating one or another culinary products, each housewife tries to bring something of her own to the recipe: individual and unique. That zest by which one could determine that it was she who prepared this dish.

Therefore, the recipe for “ginger men” has many varieties and variations. The article presents one of the most simple ways preparing such a dessert.

We will need the following products:
5-6 glasses of flour;
1.5 tsp. slaked soda;
2 tsp ginger (dried or grated);
0.5 tsp chopped cloves;
1 tbsp. Sahara;
1 tbsp. honey;
a little salt;
200 g margarine or;
2 eggs;
5 tbsp. strong coffee(brewed).

Let's look at the cooking process. At the first stage, you need to mix all the dry ingredients (flour, salt, spices, if using baking powder instead of soda, you also need to add it), separately combine the melted butter with honey and sugar and beat well.

Next, add eggs, coffee and some of the flour with spices to the honey-oil mixture and mix. At the moment when it is already difficult for the mixer to cope with the thick dough, you need to add the remaining flour and start kneading by hand. Be sure to monitor the density of the mass - it should not be loose.

The finished dough should be placed in the refrigerator for 2 hours. After this, you can start cutting out the figures. In the cold, the dough becomes even denser, and it will make a high-quality “gingersnap man.” The stencil should also not fail, so to create it you should use cardboard that is as thick as possible.

Bake the figures in an oven preheated to 180 0 for no more than 15 minutes.

When the products have cooled, you can decorate the gingerbread cookies. “Men” should look appetizing, bright and not boring. Most often, glaze is used for decoration. To prepare it we will need: 1 egg, 250 g of powdered sugar, 2 tbsp. lemon juice. All ingredients should be combined in a bowl and whisked. To add color, you need to add melted chocolate and Easter cake sprinkles as gingerbread decoration.

Ground ginger powder gives gingerbread a beautiful creamy color and an unusual “festive” taste.

Ground ginger powder gives gingerbread a beautiful creamy color and an unusual “festive” taste. The rest of the set of products is no different from the ingredients for regular honey shortcrust pastry. In order for the glaze to dry instantly and the baked goods to crisp nicely, the eggs must be very fresh.

First, combine honey, sugar and ginger powder.

The products are stirred and placed on low heat.

The beneficial properties of honey are destroyed when boiling. You need to catch the moment when the entire mass has become homogeneous, and boiling has not yet begun. According to the recipe, it is best to heat the ginger honey base in a water bath.
IN hot honey You can't add soda. You should wait a little until the mass becomes warm. Then throw in the soda and stir.

Cut the butter into cubes in advance to make it soft. The oil is combined with sweet base test.

Sift the flour and pour into a bowl.

Add eggs.

Knead the dough. It turns out softly creamy and elastic. Roll it into a ball and put it in the refrigerator for half an hour. Can be wrapped in cling film. If necessary, it can be stored in the refrigerator for 24 hours, the taste of future baked goods will not change.

Roll out the dough on a floured board or directly on baking paper. The optimal layer thickness is 0.5 centimeters. If you plan to hang the gingerbread men on your tree, poke a small round hole near the top edge.

Draw the contours of the figures; you can print out the contour drawings found on the Internet. The main condition is that the design must be concise and expressive, so that we can beautifully decorate our gingerbread cookies with glaze.

Using the paper outline as a guide, cut out figures.

The future gingerbread cookies do not need to be pierced with a fork; during baking, the dough rises evenly, so the surface will be smooth. Then bake in a preheated oven for 20 minutes. Temperature – 170-180 degrees.

Then beat the egg white, add all of it in two additions. powdered sugar, beat again. The resulting glaze is used to paint only on cooled gingerbread.

Place the glaze in a small plastic bag and cut off a corner. Squeeze out through the resulting hole. For drawing, you can buy a special syringe or triangular-shaped cooking bags.

When drawing gingerbread men, first the outline is outlined with icing, then the face is drawn with dots. Clothes are decorated with dots and curls. The glaze dries in 20-30 minutes. Gingerbread men are a wonderful New Year's gift.
Bon appetit!

The story of the gingerbread man is very similar to our fairy tale about Kolobok, but if the dish is based on a Russian recipe folk tale unlikely to hit yours taste buds, then gingerbread men have conquered half the world! Simple-shaped cookies have become one of the symbols of Christmas in Europe and America, but we, looking at the West, also want to dilute the usual holiday dishes something unusual. But how are gingerbread men prepared and how are they decorated? We invite you to try 3 recipes that make best cookies.

Basic gingerbread men recipe

By and large, it will be classic with lots of spices ideal basis and for our culinary experiment, therefore, if you have already baked and you liked them, you can not change anything and use the same recipe. For those who are dealing with ginger dough for the first time, we offer a very simple recipe delicious dough, which definitely won’t let you down.

What do you need?

Flour - 500 grams.
Butter - 250 grams.
Sugar - 150-200 grams.
Honey - 50 grams.
Baking powder - 2 tsp.
Egg - 2 pcs.
Dried cinnamon - 2 tsp.
Dried ginger - 3 tsp.
Cardamom - 0.5 tsp.

Gingerbread men have a special shape that cannot be confused with anything else: without a purchased cutting mold it will be difficult to reproduce it

What to do?

Leave the butter to soften almost to room temperature, mash it with a fork or in a food processor with the egg, honey and sugar until smooth. Honey can be preheated in the microwave or in a water bath, but if the honey is too hot, the egg will curdle, so be careful.
Separately mix the flour with other dry ingredients: baking powder and spices. If you're worried that the cookies will be too pale, know that honey will already turn the cookies brownish, but you can also darken the cookies by substituting some regular sugar to brown.
Place the dry mixture into the food processor or mix it liquid part with a dry fork. After mixing, the dough should stick together into large, non-sticky lumps that can be easily formed into a ball. If you feel that the dough is a little liquid or, conversely, a little dry, add flour or butter so that the consistency of the dough becomes a little like marzipan.
The ball wrapped in cling film should remain in the refrigerator for about an hour. After this, it needs to be rolled out, cut out and placed in an oven preheated to 180˚C as soon as possible. Why fast? As soon as the butter begins to melt, it will become increasingly difficult to make the contours of the people clear. In the heat they will melt before you even put the pan in the oven, so for the best results you need to work either quickly or in a cool room. As for rolling out, you will have to make an effort. Rolling out the ginger dough to 3-5 mm is not easy, as it is dense and tends to come apart. It is best to do this between two sheets of baking paper or on a silicone mat, from which, by the way, it will be easiest to transfer the cut out cookies to a baking sheet.
Bake the cookies on baking paper for about 7 minutes, but it is important to constantly monitor their color. Don't wait until the cookies turn brown in the oven, as they will turn out to be burnt sweets. Remove the baking sheet as soon as the cookies begin to brown around the edges.

It is from this recipe that you can start and fantasize further, adding non-standard ingredients and adjusting the proportions of sugar and spices to your taste.

Lenten gingerbread men with zest and fresh ginger

Gingerbread men popular not only on New Year's holidays, and for those who want to cook them during Lent, there is a recipe that excludes butter and an egg. This recipe is also suitable for vegetarians, as it does not contain any animal ingredients.

What do you need?

400 grams of flour.
100 grams of sugar.
100 ml sweet syrup.
100 ml vegetable oil.
2 tsp. dried ginger.
2-3 tsp. dried or fresh grated zest.
1 tsp. baking powder for dough.

If “lean” means “diet” for you, you can replace complex sugar syrup with store-bought syrup with a sweetener in small quantities

What to do?

First you need to prepare a syrup from sugar, spices and sweet syrup: mix these ingredients and bring to a boil in a saucepan.
When the resulting syrup has cooled a little, add butter and add in small portions flour, previously mixed with baking powder and purchased or pre-grated zest.
Find the right consistency for this lean dough more difficult, because it is not at all similar to what is obtained from classic recipe. Be guided by the fact that the lump of dough should practically not stick to your hands.
Rolling out such dough is also more difficult, and you are unlikely to get a thin layer, so lean gingerbread men will be more likely to be fluffy, and you need to bake them at 180˚C a little longer: about 12-15 minutes.

By the way, the zest can be used from either a lemon, an orange or a tangerine, which will add a special charm to the cookies during the Christmas season. The main thing is to remember that when removing the zest, do not touch the white soft part skins.

Gingerbread men with cocoa and chocolate chips

For those who love rich brown color and chocolate flavor in everything, we suggest moving a little away from the classics ginger dough and dilute it with a small amount of chocolate. Such cookies can be proudly presented as a gift, because they look very impressive, and if you paint them with icing, it will turn out a real masterpiece!

What do you need?

Flour - 200 grams.
Butter - 120 grams.
Sugar - 70-80 grams.
Chocolate - 50 grams.
Cocoa - 2 tsp.
Baking powder - 1 tsp.
Egg - 1 pc.
Dried ginger - 1 tsp.

The thicker you roll out the dough, the more the men will look like gingerbread cookies, but the longer they will need to bake

What to do?
In general, the procedure is the same as in basic recipe, only in the dry mixture with baking powder and spices to the flour you need to immediately add cocoa and pieces of chocolate, which can be chopped with a knife. There is no need to grind the chocolate into dust: large pieces will behave much better in the dough, and the taste will be stronger.

And one more difference: it is better to make these cookies a little thicker so that there are pieces of chocolate inside. Instead of 3-5 mm, try 5-7 mm and bake the cookies a little longer: about 10 minutes.

The beauty is in the glaze

Gingerbread cookies are delicious on their own, but these cutest little people just aren’t the same without the icing. You simply must draw at least the face and buttons, which means you will have to learn how to make glaze. You can prepare it in two main ways:

Water. For this glaze you only need 150 grams of powdered sugar and about 2 tbsp. l. liquids: water, juice or milk. Just don't add all the water at once, otherwise the glaze may be too thin. Gradually stir the mixture to your desired thickness.
Protein: But here you will have to enlist the help of a mixer, because 150 grams of powdered sugar and about half the white of 1 egg will need to be beaten. If the mass turns out to be too dense, you can add a little more protein and beat the mixture again at maximum speed.

Use confectionery decorations and your imagination so that the little men look appetizing and attractive

For the outline, the glaze should be a little tighter than for the fill, and if you are doing both the outline and the fill on the same person, apply the outline first and be sure to let it dry. After this, you can paint over the gingerbread more liquid glaze inside the outline.

Tip: You can decorate the little people not only with icing, but also with bright candies like M&Ms and other confectionery decorative beads. They stick well to the glaze, so it can be used as glue.

It’s not at all difficult to prepare gingerbread men for the holiday, but you will get so many positive emotions yourself and give them to your loved ones. Stock up on our recipes and try them out as soon as possible: happy faces enjoying beautiful design And unusual taste, you are guaranteed!

What would a holiday be without New Year's gingerbread men decorating not only festive table during tea time, but also a Christmas tree and gifts for the kids? Painted with colored icing or just white sugar snowflakes, these fragrant cookies win more and more hearts every year, appearing on the tables different countries not only at New Year or Christmas celebrations, but also on ordinary working days, lifting the spirits of all those with a sweet tooth.

About the history of gingerbread cookies

We’ll talk about how to bake gingerbread men a little later; first you need to find out the history of these wonderful dough products in order to know where the tradition came from. The birthplace of ginger biscuits is Shropshire, an area in Britain. Moreover, some researchers believe that the town of Maket Drayton is the first to introduce these cookies to the world. Honey dough with ginger, baked in the form of figures of people and animals, instantly gained popularity in the country, and already on the threshold of the 18th century, gingerbread conquered all of Europe.

It is noteworthy that in parallel in Rus' honey dough with spices has been used since the ninth century, so historians still need to clarify: perhaps the British are just plagiarists and the recipe for gingerbread men still belongs to Russian craftsmen?

Classic recipe

There are many dough options for these cookies, but if you want good result, then it is better to turn to the traditional one. Recipe for gingerbread men from gingerbread dough You will need the following amount of ingredients:

250 grams of butter.
2 eggs: yolks for the dough, and whites for the glaze.
4 tbsp. spoons of honey. It should be a little liquid, so if it is candied, you can slightly melt it in a water bath.
200 grams of granulated sugar.
2 cups powdered sugar (for icing).
3-4 teaspoons of ground ginger.
1 teaspoon of soda.
4 cups wheat flour.
Spices or flavorings of your choice.

What spices are best to use?

According to the recipe, ginger is placed in the dough for baking gingerbread men to give them a specific taste, but for a special aroma it is better to add some other ingredient that you like best. It could be lemon or orange zest, classic vanilla, aromatic cinnamon, exotic star anise or fragrant cloves. Of course, nowadays some confectioners use concentrated flavors, but on New Year’s holidays isn’t it better to be closer to the natural, home-made flavor using a regular mortar and pestle (at worst, you can use a coffee grinder)?

When the magic of making cookies happens, and the exciting aromas of spices fill the kitchen, intertwining with the smell of baking, a feeling appears special taste life and satisfaction from it.

Step-by-step preparation

Gingerbread dough for gingerbread cookies in the shape of a man is prepared according to the honey recipe. First you need to prepare the spices: grind them thoroughly in a mortar to the smallest grains. Next, mix the butter that has melted at room temperature, with sugar and slightly warmed honey. This should only be done in a water bath and under no circumstances should the honey be allowed to get too hot - it will lose its properties without ever reaching the flour. In a separate bowl, lightly beat the eggs with spices and add them to the oily mass, stirring constantly so that the ingredients interact with each other.

Next, mix the sifted flour with soda and gradually combine it with the egg-oil mixture. Knead the dough into a tight dough. Initially, it will not be completely obedient, but as you knead, the dough will turn into a lump that slightly sticks to your hands.

Forming and baking products

Roll out the dough. It is so unique that the thickness of the layer determines what kind of cookie it will be: roll out thinly and it will be crispy, and if it is 5 to 8 mm thick, then it will be soft and tender. We focus on our tastes and cut out gingerbread cookies with a mold, which we immediately place on a baking sheet covered with parchment paper. Very often gingerbread dough rolls out poorly, as it sticks to the table, rolling pin and hands, and also tears at the edges, so confectioners have a simple solution to this problem: you need to place the dough between two layers of cling film, roll it out, and then carefully remove the top layer. So in a simple way everything is solved, moreover, the cookies cut out with a mold can easily be transferred to a baking tray.

Place a baking sheet with gingerbread cookies in an oven preheated to 180 degrees and bake for 7-10 minutes until lightly browned. Try not to overcook the products in the oven, otherwise they will become very hard, because gingerbread men according to the honey dough recipe bake very quickly. You should let them cool on the baking sheet and only then carefully remove them, because they are very tender and fragile.

Icing for decoration

This beautiful word is used to describe sugar icing for decorating finished cookies, so you can give it the fabulous features of gingerbread men. It is considered basic because with the help of this glaze you can draw not only patterns on cookies or outline their contours, but also create more voluminous compositions. The icing recipe is quite simple: lightly beat the egg whites. Important! There is no need to beat them with a mixer or whisk until a fluffy and stable foam, you just need to lightly work with a fork.

Next, add the powdered sugar in small portions, carefully rubbing the mixture each time until smooth, so that there are no lumps. At the end of cooking, add one teaspoon to the glaze lemon juice, which will make the icing more manageable and richly shiny. Finished glaze for painting cookies, “Gingerbread Men” is quite viscous and does not float on the surface of the product, clearly maintaining the specified pattern.

How to decorate cookies beautifully?

If you plan to decorate the cookies in color, you should separate the entire sugar icing into pieces, adding to each the desired color, which gives food coloring, sold in every specialty store. You can also use natural dyes in the form of carrot or spinach juice, red beets. Knead the icing thoroughly and place it in small confectionery cornets made from cling film or parchment, and before starting to draw, use sharp scissors to cut off the tip, no more than 2 mm, so that the strip of glaze on the surface of the gingerbread is very thin and beautiful.

How to decorate gingerbread men if you have absolutely no skills in drawing with icing? The first thing to do is outline the cookie by lightly pressing the icing on the pan. This is done when the cookies have completely cooled down after baking, preferably the next day. You can come up with a wide variety of patterns on people: from classic ones in the form of a face and buttons on clothes, to shirts, dresses and bows. An obligatory factor is the smile of the gingerbread man, as a symbol of a happy coming year.

The sugar icing on the cookies should dry at room temperature for two days, so you shouldn’t put them in the refrigerator, otherwise if the temperature changes, the icing will start to “float”, and all your work will be in vain.

If you make a hole in the top edge of the cookie with a cocktail straw before baking, then ready-made cookies can be hung on christmas tree by threading a ribbon through the hole.

If you lightly grease the cookies before decorating the gingerbread men plain water, then the icing will lie in a more even layer, turning the baked goods into a work of art.

These cookies can be stored for about three months, subject to the right conditions, they absolutely do not lose their taste qualities, so you can start preparing them a week or two before the start of the holiday in order to have time to do everything.

Using exactly the same recipe, cookies are prepared in the shape of snowflakes, stars, Christmas trees and other types that the kids want to see. While painting the surface, give free rein to your imagination and plunge into creative process, giving him a piece of his cordiality and warmth. After all, as the law of balance of the Universe says: what you put in is what you get out.

Cooking instructions

1 hour 30 minutes + 1 hour Print

1. Add butter, sugar and salt to a bowl. Mix all this with a mixer. Mixer tool Beat egg whites, and it’s also convenient to knead other substances like minced meat or dough not by hand (as this requires effort and time), but with the help of a mixer like KitchenAid. For example, the Artisan model has ten speed modes and three different attachments for working with any consistency, and it is also a universal food processor.

2. Add honey to the resulting mass and mix. It is better to use liquid, viscous honey, which will greatly simplify your work. Tool Honey dispenser The device holds the honey in the grooves, so that it flows gradually onto a dish or just onto the bread. You can also use it to add honey to various drinks. Metal and silicone ones are much more hygienic than their wooden counterparts.

3. Add the egg and mix again.

4. Let's move on to spices. You can add the spices you like and as much as you want. But don't overdo it. In addition, you can add a spoonful of cocoa so that the cookies are dark in color and the decorations on the cookies will be more visible. Mix it all.

5. Form the dough. Add baking powder and gradually add flour. And we begin to knead the dough. Add the remaining flour. Flour seeder tool Flour must be sifted even if you grind it yourself and guarantee the absence of lumps and pellets. Waking up through the sieve, the flour is loosened, saturated with oxygen, the dough rises better and then has a better texture. You can sift using any fine sieve or, for example, a special OXO seeder, which works on the principle of a meditative rocking chair.

6. Form the dough into a ball. Wrap it in cling film and put it in the refrigerator for about an hour.

7. In an hour we begin to roll out chilled dough, first sprinkle the surface on which you will roll out the dough with flour. (no thicker than 1 cm)

8. Take the cookie cutters you like and start cutting out.

9. Place baking parchment on a baking sheet and transfer the cookies to the pan.
Tool Baking paper Open pies and quiches for even baking, it is better to place them in the oven on a wire rack, and to prevent the sauce boiling from the heat from dripping between the rods, baking paper will help. For example, the Finns produce a good one - it is quite dense and is already divided into sheets that are easy to get out of the box. And nothing more is required from paper.

10. Place in an oven preheated to 180 degrees. Tool Oven thermometer How the oven actually heats up, even if you set a specific temperature, can only be understood with experience. It is better to have a small thermometer on hand that is placed in the oven or simply hung on the grill. And it is better that it shows degrees Celsius and Fahrenheit simultaneously and accurately - like a Swiss watch. The thermometer is important when it is necessary to strictly observe temperature regime: say in the case of baking.