Gingerbread

I have been baking gingerbread cookies at Christmas for a long time now. I remember making little gingerbread houses in my grandmother’s kitchen years and years ago. I’ll try and find images of those..
I’m not a great baker and there are only a handful of things I bake and most of the time with fruits in them. But no Christmas can go by without me filling the house with the smell of gingerbread cookies. I find them very easy to make and very relaxing to bake and decorate. Perfect.

You won’t need a huge and special list of ingredients but you might want to make sure you have some cookie cutters before you start with your gingerbread. They come in all shapes and forms but I do like using Christmassy ones at Christmas time. Christmas tree, bells, moose, stars, angels..

This gingerbread is soft and keeps for weeks only that it’s so good it never really does..

You will need:

200g of honey
150g of butter
250g of icing sugar
3 eggs
1tsp sodium carbonate
750g of flour
1 pack gingerbread spice mix

or
your own mix of the following
2tsp of ground cinnamon
1tsp of ground ginger
1tsp of ground cloves
1/2 tsp of ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp of ground cardamom

And this is what you’ll need to do:

Put the butter and the honey into a bowl that will fit over a pan of simmering water. Leave it over the water, stirring occasionally. When melted, let the mix cool.

In a large bowl, mix together the rest of the ingredients and add the butter-honey mix to it. You’ll get a soft dough. I don’t mix or overwork it too much, just slightly shape it into a ball. Let the dough rest in a cool place or in the fridge for overnight or even a day or two.

When ready to bake them, preheat the oven to 170 Celsius. Roll the dough to about 3-5mm thick. Then out with all those cookie cutters!
Flour the cutter a bit so the dough doesn’t stick to it. Line your baking tray with a sheet of baking parchement and put your cut cookies onto the tray and into the preheated oven for about 5-8 minutes.

Do keep an eye on them as they bake very quick. When nice and golden, they are ready.

Place the cookies on a cooling rack. When completely cooled down, you can start preparing for the icing. If you don’t have time for it straight away, just put the cookies in a cookie jar or tin, they will last there forever and can decorate them anytime.

For the icing, you’ll need 1 egg white, 200g icing sugar and a drop of lemon.

In a bowl beat the egg white and gradually add the icing sugar. This should take about 3-4 minutes. Then add a drop of lemon that will give a nice shine to the icing.
When nice and firm, spoon the mix into a piping bag and have fun icing your own designs!

And now it’s time to use your beautifully crafted gingerbread cookies.
I like making gifts tags or place cards for Winter parties. They can also be wonderful gifts in a nice jar or just the perfect treat on a cold Winter afternoon..

Wishing you all a wonderful Christmas!

with love,
Eva