Gingerbread is a traditional New Year's treat in European countries. The gingerbread man is an indispensable attribute of the winter holiday, along with a Christmas tree, garlands and advertising for Coca-Cola. Despite the abundance of hot spices, and primarily ginger, it turns out to be a sweet and aromatic treat. What kind of Christmas baking can be without these spicy flavors? The smell of homemade gingerbread cannot be conveyed in words. Various molds allow you to cut out gingerbreads in the form of a Christmas tree, snowflakes, various animals, houses, hearts and so on from the dough. Great New Year's Eve entertainment that kids can connect to. Christmas cookies can be presented by tying them with a beautiful ribbon, or hung on a Christmas tree as an edible decoration. And from this dough, you can make a beautiful and edible decoration under the Christmas tree - a gingerbread house.
Christmas gingerbread would not be so festive if not for their painted decoration. Icing, or Royal icing, is quite simple to prepare, but there are many nuances, so I recommend looking at a separate icing recipe. The color of the dough depends on the amount of spices: more cinnamon is darker, less is lighter. Experience suggests that the longer the dough lasts, the tastier, darker and smoother the gingerbread. Therefore, let the dough rest for at least an hour. Better if the dough is in the freezer for a week. I offer you a detailed recipe with a photo of gingerbread with glaze. All proportions in the recipe are matched perfectly, the thickness of the gingerbread is adjusted independently. Thin gingerbread will be crispy, while thicker gingerbread will be soft on the inside. By the way, it is not at all necessary to prepare such gingerbread cookies only for the New Year, although they are the decoration of this holiday. Such pastries can be prepared for Valentine's Day, March 8, and Birthday, if you choose the appropriate molds and prepare a beautiful multi-colored icing. But the most important thing is to cook with love.
I propose to cook just Christmas gingerbread in the form of snowflakes and Christmas trees. The aroma that fills the house in the process of baking the dough is a special, magical aroma, it creates a New Year mood and encourages you to sing "Jingle bells" right in the kitchen. Christmas baking is a great tradition that will help keep families together and keep children busy.
Ingredients:
1. Combine egg, sugar, soft butter and honey. Sugar is suitable for both regular white and brown. We take honey to taste, or whatever it is. In the West, honey is often replaced by pataca.
2. Beat everything with a mixer until smooth.
3. In a separate bowl, combine all the spices, flour and necessarily soda - this ingredient will make the gingerbread lush. You do not need to extinguish the soda, it will react with honey.
4. Mix the contents of the two bowls.
5. Knead the dough with a spoon until it darkens and begins to separate. By the way, the final color of the dough depends on both the spices and the type of honey. Light varieties (linden, acacia) will produce gingerbread with a pleasant brownish hue, and if you take buckwheat honey, you will get dark, almost chocolate gingerbread.
6. Gradually roll the dough out of heterogeneous lumps into a smooth ball.
7. Flatten it (it will cool faster this way) and wrap it in cling film. We send it to the refrigerator for at least an hour. It is easier to cut gingerbread from cold dough, they turn out to be smoother and more accurate.
8. Divide the dough into 2 parts. We will roll out one, and the second can be put in the refrigerator for now.
9. Roll it into a layer on parchment or between two sheets (so the rolling pin does not stick, and you don't need to sprinkle anything with excess flour, which will clog the dough). If the rolling pin is varnished, smooth (like mine), then you can only do with parchment from below. The shape of the gingerbread also depends on the thickness of the layer: if you roll it too thin, you get crispy cookies, not gingerbread.
10. Now the most interesting thing: we begin to push through the layer with molds. If there are no special molds, you can use a regular glass or cut out the dough with a knife. Our Christmas or New Year's gingerbread cookies can be of the usual rounded shape, snowflakes and Christmas trees can be drawn on them with icing. We try to maximize the use of the entire area of the dough, but leave a small distance between the gingerbread cookies - when baking, the gingerbread cookies will spread slightly both wide and high. Carefully remove the excess dough and roll it out into a ball again, only on another sheet of parchment. The main thing is not to let the dough heat up, otherwise it may begin to stratify and lose its shape. If the dough is hot, put it in the refrigerator for 10-15 minutes, and cut it out again. It is very convenient to transfer the gingerbread cookies to a baking sheet along with a sheet of parchment - the molds are not deformed, the gingerbread cookies are smooth and beautiful. In this form, we send our snowflakes to the preheated oven to bake until tender. It is enough for them from 7 to 10 minutes at a temperature of 180 degrees. Readiness is determined with a toothpick, there should be no traces of the dough on it. Gingerbread cookies can start to burn pretty quickly and our goal is to prevent this from happening. And, although it is quite difficult to determine from the first time by the color of the baking whether it is burnt or not, this affects the taste very noticeably. Therefore, we take it out and try it. By the way, hot gingerbread is softer, and when cooled down, it is crispy.
11. The recipe for Christmas gingerbread at home has come to an end. But you need to decorate them to create a festive atmosphere of Christmas and New Year.
12. Still, without icing, the gingerbread cookies do not have a festive look, so we put them in a separate container to cool down, and proceed to the preparation of the royal icing.
13. Add the whites of five quail eggs to 250 g of finely ground powdered sugar.
14. Knead the cream of a thick consistency, first with a spoon, then with a mixer at minimum speed. It will take about 7 minutes in total.
15. Dilute icing with boiled water, a few drops at a time and knead. The icing that matches the consistency should reach for the spoon.
16. We decorate the gingerbread cookies with a pastry bag: the lines stretch and then go down. Dry the jewelry for about 30 minutes.
17. New Year's gingerbread is ready. Bon appetit and Happy New Years!
Waiting for the New Year is not only about decorating the house and creating a festive menu. As a rule, baking is done in every family on the eve of December 31st. Not only grandiose cakes and tender rolls, shortbread cookies and crispy "brushwood" are created. Delicious homemade gingerbread cookies with glaze become a real "hit" on the table during the holiday. It is incredibly beautiful and delicious! Such pastries bring their mood, warmth, comfort, a true feeling of happiness to the atmosphere of the house. Plus, the process of painting gingerbread in the kitchen can bring the whole family together. After all, surely everyone will want to make their own copy!
Delicious honey gingerbread for the New Year is a great opportunity to diversify the standard menu and add variety to a harmonious range of snacks and salads. It will turn out very tasty and spectacular thanks to the painting of finished fragrant confectionery products with sugar glaze. At home, this is not so difficult.
Cooking time - 1.5 hours.
Servings Per Container - 12.
To bake this version of New Year's gingerbread, you need:
Note! You can add cloves, cardamom, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, etc. from spices to the composition of New Year's honey cakes. But you should not use everything right away. Use 2-4 spices for the dough.
The process of making New Year's gingerbread does not cause any particular difficulties. If you use the proposed step-by-step recipe with a photo, then all problems and difficulties can be avoided.
On a note! If you plan to decorate the Christmas tree with ready-made pastries, then at this stage make holes for the fasteners. For this purpose, it is optimal to use cocktail tubes.
As you can see, making Christmas gingerbread with your own hands is not so difficult!
Gingerbread New Year's cakes with glaze have become a real classic. Their rich taste is associated with cozy winter evenings spent in the kitchen with the whole family. It is not surprising that such pastries, decorated with glaze, will take their rightful place at the festive table. After all, as you know, New Year is a family holiday.
Cooking time - 1 hour.
Servings Per Container - 5.
To prepare this version of New Year's gingerbread, you need:
For the glaze, with which we will paint the finished gingerbread, we need:
So, if you decide to diversify the festive table with gingerbread New Year's cakes, take note of the proposed recipe with step-by-step photos. This will make it easier for you to cope with baking, especially if this is your first time making such a dessert.
Note! When water is poured into the sugar syrup, the mass will begin to "shoot". So be extremely careful not to burn yourself.
On a note! The total whipping time for icing is about 5 minutes.
The result is delicious, delicious New Year's gingerbread.
To make your New Year's gingerbread a success, first get acquainted with the video recipes:
Spiced New Year's gingerbread is considered a traditional treat that combines the sweetness of a dessert with the originality of a holiday gift. Traditionally, they are baked before the Christmas holidays, presented to friends and relatives, and decorated with a New Year tree. For such New Year's gingerbread, the recipe is unusual, and with a lot of baking, fragrant spices. The decoration of the products is also festive - they are poured with multi-colored glaze, figures of Santa Claus, snowflakes, Christmas trees and other festive motives are created on the surface of each gingerbread.
Gingerbread has a long history. Glazed Christmas gingerbread has been popular since the Middle Ages in Europe. Then there were even fairs where these gingerbread cookies were sold in beautiful holiday boxes. In addition to gingerbread, products of other shapes were also baked in the form of figures of kings, castles, mills, hearts, and so on.
The richer the gingerbread or gingerbread house was decorated, the more expensive it cost. Handmade gingerbreads were presented as gifts for the New Year and Christmas to the most dear and close people. In the most precious samples, gold was used for painting, the surface was decorated with beads, everything was done by hand. The recipe for New Year's gingerbread was usually kept and passed down from generation to generation.
Today you can make handmade gingerbread cookies with your own hands, and not necessarily on Christmas Eve. Such products will delight children and adults, bring the aroma of holiday and magic to your home. Made with your own hands, such a gingerbread can become a present and decoration for a New Year tree.
For a flavorful soft gingerbread dough, you need the following products:
By the way, you can use fresh ginger in this recipe, grate it finely enough. But don't overdo it, as the ginger root is spicy enough to taste and can ruin your gingerbread dough.
There is no liquid in this test, such as milk or water. Thanks to this, your ready-made gingerbread can be stored for about 1 month and not spoil. Also, keep in mind that the painting should harden properly, so start preparing such festive baked goods in a few days.
For a quality gingerbread, cooking takes very little time. The only thing you have to tinker with painting to get really beautiful holiday products. Let's start by kneading the dough:
Before making New Year's gingerbread, the dough needs to stand for at least half an hour. Wrap it in plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator for this time. After that, we start creating holiday baked goods:
Put all the gingerbread cookies on a dish in 1 layer and cool to room temperature. Before decorating such products, the dough must be completely cool, otherwise the glaze will not stick to the surface.
A special glaze is required to decorate New Year's gingerbread. We offer the most simple and affordable recipe for glaze for painting:
Now let's get down to the design:
New Year's gingerbread figures will become a favorite treat for your whole family for the New Year. You can make them the center of the holiday table, as well as decorate your Christmas tree.
Hello, friends! In the smoothly approaching pre-holiday bustle, for some reason the following conclusion came to mind: how many people - so many gingerbread ... It seems that making gingerbread for the New Year will soon be more obligatory than cutting it yourself, His Majesty, OLIVIER.
Well, you've probably noticed that the last couple of years, our greatest minds have been swallowed up by the GINGERBREAD EPIDEMIC.
The overseas fashion for Christmas gingerbread has transformed with us into a craze for gingerbread. For reasons I do not understand, this is how they began to call any shortbread cookie, which includes honey and spices led by ginger... Every second self-respecting individual considers it necessary to cook, or at least buy a box of painted gingerbreads for the new year. Not so much to eat as for a souvenir or hang on the tree.
Read my entire list of selected New Year's cookies.
Have you ever thought about the name "gingerbread"? What a funny word ... I'll go and see who came up with this.
Aaaaaa! Everything turned out to be extremely simple. Gingerbread comes from the word spicy, in ancient Russian "ppyryan" meant "pepper". And in other languages of the world, gingerbread means peppercorn. In Swedish, for example, it sounds like "Peperkaka" In short, she's still fun!
The main ingredient in gingerbread is honey. And also, real gingerbread cookies are made on the basis of caramel syrup. It is he who gives the gingerbread this unique taste, which we all know from childhood.
But since December is an already difficult month, we will not complicate our life with caramel and will cook gingerbread according to a simple recipe. Moreover, they contain both spices and honey, so we have every reason to call them gingerbread.
I started making gingerbread cookies for the new year even before the general gingerbread and gingerbread BOOM started on them. Although I myself am not a big fan of spicy sweets, I just like the process of fiddling with New Year's gingerbread cookies: cut beautiful themed figurines from the dough, bake them to fill the house with the spicy aroma of the holiday, and then paint them with multi-colored sugar icing.
I’m not a cool glaze artist, and I don’t have time to learn. So everything is primitive and simple for me.
If you like and want more complicated, I will refer you to this video, in which you will make sure that painting gingerbread is quite affordable, and at the same time look at a visual example of how thick the icing should be.
If you don't have such a thin nozzle for a pastry bag, you can make an envelope out of ordinary baking paper (the kind in which grandmothers sold us seeds in a bag before, remember?). Or take disposable pastry bag and cut off a corner from him.
From these ingredients, about 50 gingerbreads are obtained.
Nowadays, icing for gingerbread you can buy ready-made , but you can cook it yourself in the old fashioned way.
We use the finished glaze immediately, otherwise it will cool down.
Here is such a simple recipe for gingerbread for the New Year you can cook if you want to keep up with the current generation.
Have a good and carefree holiday mood.
Good luck, love and patience.
New Year's holidays are a time when magic is in the air, smells of tangerines and delicious gingerbread. Each housewife tries to surprise her relatives with something unusual, not only tasty, but also beautiful. New Year's gingerbread can be considered a real symbol of winter holidays. There are a lot of recipes for making such sweets, and some of them can rightly be called old. New Year's gingerbread cookies can become not only a delicious dessert, but also a wonderful gift and a beautiful decoration for the Christmas tree.
For the preparation of New Year's sweets, a special gingerbread dough is used, which consists of flour, honey and spices. This dough is easy to prepare. It is easy and pleasant to work with him. If you want to make New Year's gingerbread, but you have absolutely no experience in this matter, you should not be afraid.
Even an inexperienced hostess can cope with such a task. Gingerbread is not just baked goods, it is also a huge field for imagination and activity. After all, it is not enough just to cook pastries, it still needs to be beautifully decorated with colored glaze. All family members, especially children, can participate in such an interesting and entertaining work.
How to bake New Year's gingerbread? There are various recipes for making such sweets. In our article, we want to cite only a few of them so that readers can choose the most acceptable option for themselves.
To make New Year's gingerbread with cocoa, we need:
In order to prepare New Year's gingerbread with cocoa, it is necessary to thoroughly mix the spices pounded with sugar into powder with honey, soda, powdered sugar and eggs until smooth.
Then add about half of the available flour (you need to use only sifted flour) and knead the dough, then put it on a board and knead, adding flour. The result should be a non-liquid dough. It may stick slightly to your hands. In order to make it easier to work with, the dough must be placed in the refrigerator for an hour. After that, roll it out into a thin layer (no more than 0.5 cm) and cut out gingerbread cookies with molds. Next, put them on a baking sheet and bake in a well-preheated oven at a temperature of 200 degrees.
To prepare the glaze, we need:
The whites must be separated from the yolks and beat with a mixer until the foam rises. Now you need to gradually introduce the icing sugar. There is one small nuance that should be considered when preparing the glaze. You need to understand for what purpose you need it. If it is intended for pouring a mold, then it should have a slightly liquid consistency. This glaze can be obtained by whipping the whites at low speeds and gradually adding the powder.
It's a completely different matter if you need a mixture with which you plan to decorate your homemade gingerbread cookies. Such glaze should have a sufficiently thick consistency so that, on the one hand, it could be painted with, and on the other, it does not spread. To get such a mixture, it is necessary to beat the whites at high speeds, sometimes even an additional portion of the powder is required. The resulting thick glaze is very convenient to paint on gingerbread.
What could be better than New Year's gingerbread, which breathes with fairy tales and a holiday ?! You can not only give them and eat them, but also decorate the Christmas tree with them. These edible decorations will please all children.
To make sweets, we need:
The given amount of ingredients is enough for making gingerbread for a large family. If you don't need that much baked goods, then it makes more sense to reduce the amount of food.
To prepare the dough, mix soft butter with eggs, honey and sugar. Dry ingredients should also be combined and added to flour. Next, knead the dough and send it to the refrigerator for half an hour. Over time, we roll out the mass into thin layers 0.5-0.6 mm thick and cut the gingerbread cookies using molds. Put the finished figures on a baking sheet with parchment and bake in a well-heated oven for 25-30 minutes. So the New Year's gingerbread is ready. Now you need to decorate them, the easiest option is to sprinkle them with powdered sugar on top.
If you want to make the most beautiful Christmas gingerbread cookies with icing, then you should prepare icing to decorate them. What is icing? In other words, it's icing sugar. For children, it is perhaps the most delicious ingredient in gingerbread.
Christmas gingerbread cookies with glaze are incredibly beautiful and tasty, they look festive and can become a real decoration for the Christmas tree. Icing is a versatile tool for painting any baked goods. And if you use food coloring, you can get glaze of various shades, then the gingerbread cookies will become even more beautiful and fabulous.
So, to prepare icing for gingerbread cookies, we need the following ingredients:
To prepare the glaze, you need not so many products, one protein is enough to decorate a whole kilogram of gingerbread.
Separate the egg white from the yolk and beat it at low speed with a mixer (you can also use a whisk). At this stage, we are not faced with the goal of getting a thick foam, we need to bring the protein to a homogeneous state. Next, add the icing sugar and mix everything well. Then you should add lemon juice, thanks to which the icing will shine and shimmer in the sun. So our icing is ready. If you need icing of different colors, then you need to put it in different containers and add multi-colored dyes.
With icing, you can draw lines, points, and even fill the entire surface. All of these options require different consistencies of glaze. So, for example, for pouring gingerbread, icing should be more liquid. To do this, add a little water to it and mix.
To make the drawing beautiful and clear, the outer contour of the gingerbread is drawn with thick glaze, and the middle is poured with a more liquid one. It is more convenient to draw lines and dots with the help of pastry syringes or pastry bags. Working with glaze, you can show all your imagination. Even if you are deprived of the talent of an artist, gingerbread will still turn out to be beautiful and mouth-watering. All family members can be involved in the drawing process, especially such work will appeal to children, whose imagination is richer than that of adults.
When the New Year's painted gingerbreads are ready, you need to give the glaze an opportunity to harden. This usually does not take long. The thickest icing dries for about half an hour, but liquid icing will take at least several hours.
Gingerbread painting is a fun and exciting process. If you haven't used up all the glaze, you can store it in a sealed box for several days, as it hardens quickly in air.
In our article, we have given just a few recipes for wonderful New Year's gingerbread. In fact, there are many options for their preparation and design. It is simply impossible to mention all of them within the framework of one article. We hope that our information will help the hostesses navigate this issue.