Who more than gingerbread (and gingerbread men) are a Christmas classic?
Their scent spreads throughout the house and they are so cheerful and colorful when you prepare the bags of cookies for Christmas, and they are perfect for spending a rainy afternoon in joy with the children cooking and decorating. Among other things, from a book I read recently, “the Miniaturist”, I discovered that already in 1600 in Amsterdam they were making human-shaped cookies for Christmas, but perhaps the tradition is even older.
But let’s see how to do it, in preparation for next Christmas.
Ingredients:
- 155 gr of raw cane sugar
- 55 gr of granulated sugar
- 155 gr of butter
- 5 gr of ground cinnamon
- 12.5 gr of ground ginger
- 45 gr of whole eggs
- 12.5 gr of fresh whole milk
- 360 gr of 00 flour
- 5 gr of baking powder
- 1 gr of salt
For the icing:
click here for the recipe for the icing and prepare some in various colors. Keep some piping bags or a syringe handy to make the decorations, if you don’t have them, make small cones with baking paper, it will work great!
If you don’t want to cook the icing, you can also simply mix 100 gr of icing sugar with 17.5 gr of egg white (add it a little at a time to avoid it being too liquid) and 2.5 g of lemon juice until you get a consistent icing and then divide it adding your favorite colors. If it is still too liquid, add icing sugar until it increases its density.
Procedure
Work with the planetary mixer (or with the whisk or by hand) the two types of sugar, cinnamon, ginger and salt with the soft butter until you obtain a soft and homogeneous dough.
Add the eggs and milk little by little (you can also mix them first) and then little by little the flour mixed with the yeast, previously sifted.
You will get a nice shortcrust pastry that you will let rest covered in the fridge for 30-60 minutes or you can freeze for future biscuits.
Work and roll out the dough and cut biscuits in the shape of little men, houses, bears (and all the shapes you like, as long as they are big enough to decorate them), place them on a baking tray and bake for 10-15 minutes at 180°C.
The cookies must cook, coloring just a little on the edges, without coloring too much. Remove from the oven and let cool and harden.
At this point proceed to decorate them with the icing, with silver beads and sugars and let them solidify … and thus make your Christmas even more special, scented with ginger and cinnamon … In the video you will find instructions on how to make snowflake-shaped decorations, as it should be at Christmas … https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFYFe3uxtIc
Here you will find some photos that can inspire your decorations, the first very Christmassy ones
But I want to point out that I also make them during the other months of the year using a little imagination in the decorations… aren’t they beautiful?
And when you have leftover egg whites? Make meringue trees (either white or with a little colouring), a little of sprinkles and it’s done!
