Gingerbread is a wonderful and universal treat in every sense, especially on the eve of the New Year.
Bright little men, stars, chocolate houses, birds are able not only to please the little sweet teeth, but to decorate a festive table or, for example, a New Year tree.
Great is the pleasure of the process of making gingerbread, because the result of troublesome work are real works of art.
To complement the taste of ginger can various additives: cinnamon, nutmeg, candied fruit, raisins, cumin, anise, marmalade, orange peel.
Gingerbread: General Cooking Principles
Real gingerbread is made from choux pastry, mixed specially for gingerbread. The main ingredients are honey, sour cream, butter, chicken eggs, granulated sugar, flour, various kinds of spices.
Preparation:
1. Put sugar and liquid honey in a saucepan, pour water on top and heat it to a hot state (do not boil!).
2. Pour the flour into the hot mixture, add spices. It is important to stir everything immediately after adding. If you leave the flour at least for a minute, it will instantly form lumps, which will then be very difficult to get rid of.
3. Leave the dough alone until it is completely cold. It is very important. Not warm, but cold. Only then will it be possible to add sour cream, eggs.
4. Knead long and vigorously. Time is not limited: 10, 15, 30 minutes - the result is important. The consistency of the dough should be of medium thickness and very soft. You can adjust it with water. Too steep dough will rise badly, and the gingerbread will be hard. Too soft - will not hold the form and will constantly stick to hands.
5. Send a baking tray with sliced dough into the oven. The temperature depends on the size of the gingerbread. For those that are smaller, suitable 230-240 degrees. For larger ones - up to 200 degrees. 6. Pour glaze and decorate in all sorts of ways that only fantasy tells.
Gingerbread: Classic
The easiest and at the same time the most win-win way to bake gingerbread. The resulting delicacy will have the “very same” taste - the taste of the Great Christmas.
Ingredients:
• a pound of wheat flour;
• a piece of butter about 150 grams;
• a few spoons of brown sugar;
• two not very large eggs;
• dark honey;
• one spoonful of ground ginger, orange zest, cloves;
• soda
You will also need to cook the icing. It is made from a single whipped egg white and a glass of sugar.
Preparation Method:
1. Heat the honey with spices over low heat, add butter at the end. Mix everything and wait for complete cooling.
2. Whip or a mixer to mix the eggs and granulated sugar. Drain with honey mass.
3. Soda extinguish and put in flour. Then mix it all up with syrup.
4. Knead the dough and put it in the refrigerator for at least a few hours.
5. Prepare curly shapes, with which and cut the finished gingerbread. Transfer to oven.
6. Bake until ready. To glaze. You can even drip lemon juice. Classic gingerbread ready.
Gingerbread: fruit flashlight
Wonderful lanterns are very easy to make, they look simply magical, and can be perfectly used both as a gift and as a treat for children and adults. From the number of products below, it turns out two medium-sized flashlights.
Ingredients:
• soft cane sugar;
• molasses - 50 grams;
• half a teaspoon of cinnamon and ginger;
• butter;
• soda;
• 200 grams of flour;
• yolk;
• decorations in the form of transparent icicles or ice, can be bought in confectionery stores;
• icing (egg whites whipped with granulated sugar);
• fruits (any: strawberries, tangerines, oranges, kiwi)
Preparation:
1. Combine sugar with molasses, put oil and spices and heat everything up. 2. Mix flour with soda and egg yolk. Add spicy mixture. Knead everything thoroughly, stretch the dough and cut several rectangles from it (approximately 8 pieces are made) with a size of 12 by 8 cm. Cut small holes in the central part of each (these are future windows). Their size is about 3 to 5 cm. The remaining dough is used for the loops.
3. Arrange the figures on the baking sheet. Pre it can be covered with paper. Crumble the icicles and place the crumb in the middle of large rectangles.
4. Keep in the oven, waiting for the icicles to melt and fill the windows. Remove and cool. Remove from paper.
5. Assemble the lanterns, like ordinary boxes. The details interlock with the help of glaze. She also attach loops. Through the loops you can thread colored braid and hang lanterns on the Christmas tree.
Gingerbread in the form of little men
These funny figures have a classic ginger flavor, however, the original shape allows them to be a great alternative to Christmas tree toys. It is enough to add a few bows - and no other decorations for the Christmas tree are simply required.
Ingredients:
• wheat flour - about 200 grams;
• a teaspoon of ginger and cinnamon;
• salt, soda, powdered sugar, sugar - to taste;
• food colors of blue and green;
• lemon juice;
• protein and sugar icing;
• maple syrup - 2 spoons. You can replace the molasses or honey;
• one egg.
Preparation:
1. Prepare the glaze, which will then be used for gluing parts. Beat the protein and gradually add sugar to it (the amount depends on the desired degree of sweetness). Achieve uniformity and density of the mixture. Then put in the fridge. There, the icing will thicken even more and will be able to glue and hold small parts.
2. Prepare the dough according to the standard scheme described above. The outlines of little men from a rolled piece cut by hand. The height of each figure is no more than 8 cm. Knead the pieces again, roll again and cut into strips about a centimeter wide, and up to 30 cm long. Repeat the manipulations with all the figures. At the end, make holes through which the tape will later pass. 3. Bake and cool.
4. Take a pastry bag (preferably a thin spout) and fill it with icing. What remains in the bowl, split in half. Paint one half green and the other blue. Pour lemon juice into the icing. Then, using a bag and colored glaze, draw little eyes, mouths, stripes and buttons, and other decorative elements.
5. Thread multicolored ribbons through the upper holes. Gingerbread in the form of little men are ready.
Finnish gingerbread
The spirit of Christmas and holidays in Finland begins in autumn. It was at this time in the windows appear Finnish gingerbread. Although the Finns are confident that only tourists can buy this delicacy in the store. They themselves prefer to conjure over the stove, creating baking with amazing taste and aroma with their own hands.
Ingredients:
• 100 grams of oil;
• a quarter cup of sand;
• as much fresh liquid honey;
• egg;
• a pound of wheat flour;
• a teaspoon of cinnamon and ginger;
• half a spoonful of cloves, cardamom and salt;
• cocoa powder;
• baking powder;
• powder and lemon juice (for icing).
Preparation:
1. Put in a pot of honey, powder or sand, oil. Heat until the mixture becomes homogeneous.
2. Mix the spices and pour them into the honey mixture.
3. Cool to warm condition and pour in egg.
4. Pour the cocoa and flour with baking powder. Let the dough stand for a few hours.
5. Roll out up to 5 mm thick. Figures cut using molds or ordinary cup. Put in the oven.
6. Prepare the icing. To do this, mix the lemon juice with powdered sugar. Decorate her gingerbread to your taste and fantasy.
7. Alternatively: melt white chocolate in a water bath, add cream to it and pour gingerbread.
Sour cream gingerbread
There are no eggs in this recipe, so this delicacy can be interesting for several groups of people at once. This, for example, vegetarians, as well as those who are allergic to chicken protein. Ingredients:
• to your taste: ginger, cinnamon, cloves;
• half a pack of oil;
• a pound of wheat or rye flour;
• honey, soda, salt;
• three quarters of a glass of sour cream;
Preparation:
1. Heat the honey and mix it with spices. Keep on fire until foam appears. Then let cool.
2. Grind the sugar in sour cream. Without stopping the process, add butter (not melted, but soft!). Pour the honey mixture.
3. Add soda and salt. In the very end - flour. If you pour it all at once, the dough will turn out dense, and the finished product will look like gingerbread in its pure form. If you reduce the number, it will rise as baking. This will add friability.
4. Knead the dough until smooth. Wrap in a film and move to a cold place for half a day.
5. After 12 hours, you can bake. Roll out the dough, cut out the figures of the desired forms and put them on a baking sheet. Estimated ready time: 10-15 minutes.
Lenten Gingerbread
This recipe is a logical continuation of the previous one, however, in a more severe version. As you know, as a believer, people do not consume sour cream, eggs, and other animal products. However, the absence of these components does not prevent sugar-honey cakes to become a wonderful dessert for the whole family.
Ingredients:
• half a glass of sugar;
• as much honey;
• a few spoons of butter;
• three glasses of flour;
• soda, ground ginger
Preparation:
1. Prepare a zhenzhka. To do this, sugar should be poured into the cooking container, put on the fire and not removed, until it turns black. Then remove and do not touch a couple of minutes.
2. Pour half a cup of boiling water into burnt sugar and actively mix with rotational movements in a circle.
3. Add ginger to the same pan and heat again, stirring all the time.
4. Add honey, vegetable oil. Pour the soda.
5. Pour the flour and knead the dough.
6. Divide the dough into patties, put them on a baking sheet. Important: keep in the oven for no more than 8 minutes, otherwise gingerbread will turn out to be too hard. 7. Cold gingerbread can be poured over lemon juice and sugar icing. To prepare it, sugar with water must be boiled down to a state of syrup, and then lemon juice is added.
Oat gingerbread with cinnamon
If you follow this recipe, then the output will be a product that looks very similar to oatmeal cookies, but has a unique taste of gingerbread.
Ingredients:
• 300 grams of oatmeal;
• wheat flour;
• a glass of cane sugar;
• on the eye - ginger, cinnamon and vanilla;
• two eggs;
• oil, salt, raisins.
Preparation:
1. Beat butter together with sugar and eggs. Add vanilla, mix.
2. Pour the rest of the ingredients, except for oatmeal and raisins. Stir once more.
3. Add flakes and raisins. Put on the cooling for half an hour - an hour.
4. Put parchment on a baking sheet, spread gingerbread on it in the form of oblate balls.
5. Bake until 15 minutes. About readiness can tell a golden hue.
Rice Gingerbread
The main component of this pastry is rice flour. It does not contain gluten, which means it does not carry the possible side effects that modern food manufacturers love to frighten. Baking in rice flour due to its high starch content is especially crispy.
Ingredients:
• egg;
• rice flour;
• icing sugar - a quarter of a glass;
• baking powder - half a teaspoon;
• hazelnut nut;
• ground ginger - 2 spoons;
Preparation:
1. Beat egg and powder. Add ginger, ground hazelnuts, flour and powder to the mixture.
2. Mix everything very well.
3. Distribute powdered sugar on the board. Roll balls of dough in it and put them on a baking sheet.
4. Keep on fire for 10 minutes.
Gingerbreads: Tricks and Tips
1. The main ingredient of gingerbread - ginger - is most often put into the dough in a ground form. However, there are also pieces of ginger in sugar. They can be cut and add to the dough or to the cream. Then the taste of the finished delicacy will be more pronounced and slightly tart. 2. Gingerbread, unlike cookies, do not acquire density immediately, as soon as they are removed from the oven. This sometimes prevents the hostess to understand whether baking is ready. It is possible to determine whether it is enough to bake the gingerbread by carefully examining the edges. If they are rosy - you need to get it and leave the baking sheet for a while. Ten minutes later, pastries will get the desired crunch.
3. True gingerbread dough is prepared only on sour cream and honey without sugar, molasses and leavening agents. Their presence in the composition, however, does not spoil the quality of the product, only a few changes the taste.
4. Vodka, rum or cognac, added to the dough (about 3-4 spoons) give a good loosening effect.
5. To achieve high-quality, and importantly, good gluing glaze is possible only if it is prepared on egg whites, and not on water. Gingerbread can also be glazed with honey syrup, in which lemon, cranberry or other sour berries are added.
