Gingerbread cookies for Christmas

How to make gingerbread cookies.

Since Ikea came into our lives, our knowledge of Northern European gastronomy has improved greatly.

We can all speak properly about Swedish meatballs, Norwegian salmon burgers , blueberry jam, herring marinated in sour sauce (well, maybe not about this) and, of course, gingerbread cookies .

On the blog you can find various types of Christmas cookies , they are a small summary of several years preparing cookies to give away this holiday season.

I have prepared bags with homemade Christmas cookies   and I assure you that this recipe will become a top of my cookie gifts.

The recipe that I make has a difference with the original, I substitute molasses, or sugar cane honey, for a Galician bee honey.

On the one hand, finding molasses is a bit complicated and on the other , what better than a quality Galician honey for some cookies? The difference in taste is minimal and the result is just as good.

Preparing the cookie dough

1. We beat the butter in a bowl until a cream is made.
2. Add the sugar to the butter and beat the mixture again until it turns whitish.
3. We add the honey little by little, stirring constantly until the ingredients are integrated. Add the egg to the mixture and stir well.
4. In a separate bowl we sift the flour and the baking soda and add the cloves, ginger, cinnamon, cardamom and salt.
5. Mix with some rods and pour the flour mixture into the bowl with the rest of the ingredients.
6. Stir until fully integrated, we will have a sticky ball due to honey.
7. We divide the dough into several parts and wrap them in plastic wrap.

Cinnamon Gingerbread Shape

1. We put in the fridge for 2 hours until we see that it is hard.
2. Once the dough is cold, stretch the portions between 2 baking papers with a rolling pin.
3. With the little man cookie cutter we cut the dough and keep the cookies in the fridge so that they harden again.
4. It is important so that the cookies do not grow, or do so as little as possible, during baking.
5. The remains of dough that we have left after cutting the cookies we will let them cool again in the fridge before using them again.
6. We preheat the oven to 180º C.

Baking Cinnamon Gingerbread Cookies

1. Bake the cookies on the middle tray with heat up and down for about 10 minutes, or until golden brown.
2. When we take the cookies out of the oven we will let them rest on the baking tray for a few minutes before putting them on a rack.
3. They must be cold before handling them, as they can break, at least leave them for half an hour. So they are already very rich, but we are going to decorate them, so that they are delicious.

How to make icing to decorate cookies

1. Lightly beat the egg white in a bowl until it foams. It is not necessary to mount it, simply beat it.
2. Add a third of the icing sugar and mix well. We pour the second third of icing sugar and continue beating, at this time the mixture will have acquired a considerable hardness.
3. It is important that we add the sugar in batches to be able to calibrate the moment when it is not necessary any more.
4. We add the last third of sugar and beat. The mixture will have turned completely white and quite hard.
5. We have to get enough consistency to “write”, that is to say, if we take icing with a spoon, it will not fall for 5 seconds.
6. The icing so consistent is what we use for the contours or the loose lines in the decoration, we reserve a part in a confectionery bottle.
7. If we also want to fill, for example to make a sweater for the little men, we have to get a slightly more fluid icing.
8. To do this, we will add water in drops to the rest of the icing, that is, very little by little.
9. Add, remove and check the consistency until it is as if it were a Greek yogurt, that is, if we move with the spoon the mixture will not return to its original position until 10 seconds have passed.
10. If we add too much water and it is very liquid, we can remedy it by adding more icing sugar, but it is best to add the water little by little and not overdo it.
11. Once the two types of icing that we need to decorate our cookies are prepared, we put them in separate bottles with a spout, or in a pastry bag and to paint.

If you do not want to miss the detail of this recipe for gingerbread cookies , be sure to see this album step by step, in addition to the video that you have at the beginning.

Tips for some yummy cookies

• When making the cookie dough, it is essential that the butter is at room temperature, with an ointment texture, to be able to work it.
• Just out of the oven the cookies are very soft and it is easy to break them when transferring to the rack, if you are careful and with the help of a spatula you could pass them immediately.
• To make the topping or icing we must use icing sugar , it is not worth white sugar or ground sugar.
• I also advise you to use pasteurized egg whites instead of fresh ones. First to try not to waste any yolk and second because the icing is consumed raw, so I consider it recommended that the egg be pasteurized, especially if the cookies are going to be given away or others will consume them.

A bit of history about these famous cookies

• These cookies are made from gingerbread, typical of Northern European Christmas cuisine. This bread, spiced with ginger and sweetened with molasses, was brought to Europe by an Armenian monk in 992.
• The first documented reference to the production of these cookies in the shape of a man is given at the court of Elizabeth I of England, where the queen gave her guests cookies similar to her.
• The ” gingerbread man ” found his own story in a folk tale from the late 19th century, the story is about a little cookie man escaping from the oven starting a long road full of obstacles to end up being devoured by a fox.
• In Spain we know a version of the character (evolved) with the name of “Jengi” thanks to the animated film Shrek.