Gingerbread is very dense in composition, so they can be stored for more than one week, but several months. Honey and ginger, which are natural preservatives in the dough, protect the product from damage. And you will learn how to soften gingerbread in this article.

Gingerbread made from honey and ginger are never soft. Compared to other gingerbread cookies, these are slightly tougher in structure: this is a feature of the dough recipe. It must be elastic so that when baking, the figures do not blur. Gingerbread can be softened by adding more honey to the dough.

If you are wondering how you can soften stale gingerbread cookies, use these tips.

The first way

You need to put several slices or half an apple in a box or bag with gingerbread, leave it all for several hours, you can overnight. Wash the apples, cut them into wedges, and put them between the gingerbread cookies. If the gingerbread is in a plate or basket, then you can wrap the dish with cling film, if the products are in a saucepan, then just cover it with a lid. After this procedure, the gingerbread is soft and fragrant with a pleasant apple smell.

Second way

You can refresh the gingerbread in this way: put a chopped banana between them. Also pack the container with the treat and leave it overnight. A pleasant banana aroma will emanate from the gingerbread.

Third way

If you want to make cookies as if they were just baked, then for this you need to take a few crusts of bread and orange slices. Leave them between cookies overnight, covering with a towel or plastic wrap.

To keep the products soft for as long as possible, they can be removed to the kitchen cabinet, covered with a cloth, but not next to the heating devices.

Most often, this confection is stored as a souvenir. But it also happens that the aroma is so attractive and you want to eat it as quickly as possible. And yet, if you want to taste the souvenir, you can revive it using the above methods.

This sweetness is specially packaged in paper or a box so that they can remain fresh for a very long time. Recently, it has become important to give such products as a souvenir. The gift is original, suitable for any age and no matter a man or woman will have such a souvenir.

Gingerbread cake
Gingerbread, can be stale 300g.
Butter 1/4 pack
Black currant (jam is possible) 100g.
Curd 1 pack
Egg 1 pc.
Sugar 9 teaspoons
We take gingerbread cookies (can be stale), grind into flour, mix with softened butter (as if kneading the dough). We spread the form with this dough, put currants on top, on it - cottage cheese mixed with yolk. Beat the sugar and protein into a cool foam, pour everything on top. We put in the oven for a short time, until the protein and sugar are browned.

1.
Stale gingerbread cookies can be refreshed, made soft again. To do this, put them in a colander, pour hot water into a pan and put the colander on a pan (steam bath). Turn on the gas and wait 15 minutes after the water boils. The gingerbread should be in one layer and the colander should not touch the water. Enjoy your meal!

2.
gingerbread cake
Recipe for recycling dried gingerbread.
It turns out to be a great pie. Very soft and delicate. Really pretty sweet. But the sour filling "takes away" the excess sweetness.
I really like the dried apricot filling. This time I added dates to it, and lemon for acid.
You can take thick jam or boiled condensed milk as a filling.

DOUGH
400g gingerbread, 150g butter, 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda, 2 eggs, 1 tablespoon of lemon juice
FILLING
1 lemon, ~ 300g any dried fruits (raisins, prunes, dried apricots, figs, dates), nuts if desired
Grate the zest of the lemon and squeeze the juice.
Set aside 1 tablespoon of juice.
Scroll the dried fruits through a meat grinder (if the dried fruits are too dry, pour boiling water over them for 15 ~ 20 minutes).
Mix the resulting mass with lemon juice and zest.
Pass the stale gingerbread cookies through a meat grinder and stir in the soda.
Grind the resulting gingerbread flour with butter at room temperature.
Add 2 eggs and a spoonful of lemon juice, set aside. You should get a soft, slightly sticky, but not fluid, dough.
Put half of the dough in a greased dish and flatten.
Put a layer of filling on the dough.
Top the filling with a second layer of dough.
Put the cake in an oven preheated to t \u003d 200 ° C until browning (15 ~ 20 min).
Remove the finished cake from the oven and cool without removing it from the mold.
Cut into pieces before serving.

3.
cake OLD NEW YEAR.
200g butter, 4 eggs, 300g gingerbread, 1 glass of nuts, better than walnuts, 0.5 glass of sugar, 0.5 glass of milk, soda.
Beat butter with sugar, add minced gingerbread, milk, crushed nuts, a pinch of baking soda. Beat the whites with 2 tablespoons of sugar and mix with the bulk. Knead gently until smooth. Place in a greased pan and bake over moderate heat. Cool, cut into 2-3 layers. Sprinkle each layer with sour juice (grape, apple). Lubricate with cream, preferably chocolate (condensed milk, cocoa, butter drain), trim the edges, grind. Smear the top with cream or pour over chocolate, sprinkle with crumbs or nuts - all at your discretion. Instead of cream, you can smear with sour jam. It turns out a good cake

What can be done, made from dried gingerbread?

You can make an old gingerbread cake. To do this, break the locks by any methods, for example, put in a bag, then wrap in any material and knock with a hammer.

Then pour everything with condensed milk diluted with milk or pour sour cream (sour cream with sugar). Everything in any proportion, by eye. Let it stand, soak.

Line the form with cling film or tracing paper, pour out the mass and refrigerate for several hours.

You can make something like a potato cake. To do this, we need about 700 grams of gingerbread, a can of boiled condensed milk, 180-200 grams of butter (pack), an incomplete glass of sugar, a tablespoon of cocoa. We will start cooking with the fact that the gingerbread should be chopped in a blender, in a meat grinder or a crush. Then add butter and condensed milk to them, mix well, form balls and roll in cocoa with sugar. Put in the refrigerator to set for 6 hours.

You can also have another version of the cake. Add milk, honey, nuts, condensed milk to the ground gingerbread. Knead, roll the balls and also in the refrigerator for solidification.

You can make chocolate sausage from dried gingerbread. For this berm:

1) 0.5 kg of gingerbread;

2) condensed milk 200 gr;

3) butter 200 gr;

4) cocoa 1 tablespoon.

We crush the gingerbreads well in this way: put them in a tight bag and knock them well with a hammer. Mix the softened butter with condensed milk and cocoa. We mix all the ingredients, form a sausage, put it on cellophane, wrap it and put it in the refrigerator for a couple of hours. Everything is ready!

You can try to make such a cake: soak the gingerbread cookies in milk or kefir, put them in the refrigerator for several hours, add two eggs, then a choice of raisins, chopped dates, prunes, dried apricots (any dried fruits), a little flour (to make the dough take shape) , baking powder, bake in the oven for 30-40 minutes.

And you moisten these gingerbread cookies with plenty of milk or water, put them in a baking bag and put them in the oven on a small light or in the microwave. The gingerbread cookies will become soft and almost fresh, like just baked. I always resuscitate dried bread - I put it in the oven right in the original packaging.

If not very dry, then dry and grind. Then you will sprinkle them with homemade cakes, and more.

I say this because I really saw that they do it in catering establishments. More precisely, they make a crumb (I don't remember exactly what it was called) from old cookies, gingerbread ...

Gingerbread cake

Gingerbread, can be stale 300g.

Butter 1/4 pack

Black currant (jam is possible) 100g.

Cottage cheese 1 pack

Egg 1 pc.

Sugar 9 teaspoons

We take gingerbread cookies (can be stale), grind into flour, mix with softened butter (as if kneading the dough). We spread the form with this dough, put currants on top, on it - cottage cheese mixed with yolk. Beat the sugar and protein into a cool foam, pour everything on top. We put in the oven for a short time, until the protein and sugar are browned.

They can be crumbled into some sweet dishes: pies, cakes, muffins. You can also grind dried gingerbread into semolina porridge. There it will soften a little and in the end it will turn out quite interesting if you add more jam.

But this is not for everybody!

You can make cakes. It will take 300g. gingerbread, 50g butter, 50g. condensed milk, 1-2 tablespoons cognac, coconut flakes.

It is necessary to combine condensed milk and softened butter, add dried grated gingerbread cookies and brandy to them. Mix everything well, the mass should resemble a tough dough in consistency. Form potato cakes, roll them in any coconut or cocoa powder and refrigerate for three hours.

If the gingerbread is not only dried up but also covered with mold, then all that remains is to throw it away or crumble it to the birds.

If the fungus has not visited forgotten sweets, then a blender will help.

Add condensed milk to the ground mass and mix well, add cocoa, sprinkle with powdered sugar and refrigerate for a couple of hours.

The tradition of baking gingerbread houses appeared in Germany in the 19th century. After the publication in 1812 of the fairy tale "Hansel and Gretel" by the famous brothers Grimm, fairy houses became incredibly popular in home cooking and at Christmas markets, and decorating gingerbread houses became a real art. Gingerbread houses gained particular popularity in the late Middle Ages with the invention of the gingerbread dough, which allows confectionery products not to stale for a long time. Now the houses could be admired enough, without haste to eat them.

You can knead gingerbread dough as much as you like, it will not get worse, like chopped or shortbread. But if you took up gingerbread cookies, then remember - they are not tender and crumbly, they are slightly stringy and dense. But they may not deteriorate for a long time and, what is important, they keep their shape very well when baking. Roll out the dough thinly - and the gingerbread will dry out quickly, and if you make thick printed gingerbread, they will be soft inside for a long time. If desired, gingerbread dough can be stored in the refrigerator for two weeks.

Dough

For a gingerbread dough, mix 250 g of flour with spices (1.5 tsp ground cinnamon, 1/4 tsp each ground nutmeg, cloves, ginger). If you want a darker cookie, you can add a teaspoon of cocoa.

In a separate saucepan, heat: 35g butter, 60g sugar (2 tablespoons), 80g honey (2 tablespoons), 30g milk (2 tablespoons), until the sugar dissolves and melts a little. Cool !!!

Put 1 egg in flour, pour the syrup and knead the dough with a spoon.

Put on the table, knead and roll. Shake off excess flour.

Cut the figurines into small pieces and transfer to a baking sheet lined with paper. If you want to make holes for the ribbons, this must be done before baking, most conveniently with a cocktail tube.

If you have a gingerbread board, brush it with butter, stuff it tightly with dough, roll it with a rolling pin, and turn it over. Bake ready-made gingerbread for 8 minutes at 200C, and printed ones - 12 minutes.

Glaze.

Beat 1/2 of the protein until dense foam, add 50g of powdered sugar, beat well and add another 50g of powdered sugar, mix. To make a colored glaze, add a little juice - carrot, for orange, for purple - beetroot, for burgundy - cherry, for green - spinach juice. Some juices are very liquid, so you can squeeze the berries or jam together with the pulp. It is important to stir the glaze well until smooth so that there are no lumps.

Why are the gingerbread cookies dark?

Dark gingerbread is obtained if part of the flour (up to half) is replaced with rye flour. Alternatively, the color of the gingerbread can be darkened by using dark honey and / or molasses and / or brown sugar. Another common way is to add more cinnamon, or even cocoa. The cheapest, but widespread in industrial production option is to use burnt (water solution of burnt sugar) for tinting gingerbread.

How to make gingerbread cookies soft?

There are also several ways here. One of the easiest options is to add more baking powder, baking soda, or use ammonia. Another affordable way is to replace most of the sugar with honey and / or molasses, products with them remain soft for a long time and do not stale. A lesser known and more difficult option is to make a choux pastry in which the flour is brewed with hot honey or sugar syrup. All these methods can be combined with each other, of course, which is done in most recipes. You can also just put less flour (make the dough softer, like in a French gingerbread), but then it will be difficult to cut the dough and control the shape of the products when baking. But in gingerbread cookies (ginger, for example) they often just put more oil, and the dough turns out to be like a shortbread, fragile and tender.

To soften the gingerbread cookies, just place them in a closed plastic container with a slice of apple or gingerbread skin

How to choose spices?

Only for your taste! In general, the gingerbread does not have to be spicy; you can make chocolate, mint or, for example, almond gingerbread. The amount and type of spices depends on who will eat your gingerbread. For children, cinnamon with a small addition of nutmeg and cloves works well. For adults, ground ginger and pepper will add some spice.

How to make gingerbread cookies shine?

The simplest thing is to grease them with yolk before baking. And finally: how to avoid mistakes in this recipe? Most often they forget to cool the honey syrup, the flour is brewed and the dough is too thick. Remember the syrup should be at room temperature. So that the gingerbread cookies do not burn, watch them carefully - on dark dough, roastiness is less noticeable, and you can miss the moment.

Gingerbread houses

Blanks for gingerbread houses need to be cut out before baking, then bake and fasten either with boiled condensed milk (the simpler option):

or glaze (see recipe above). In order for the glaze to hold the walls and roof of the house well together, you need to apply it to the edges and wait 10 minutes, then press it more tightly.

Take care of the finishing material: sugar glaze of all colors of the rainbow and fondant, various types of marmalades and chocolates, protein cream and marzipan, confectionery paste and colored icing, candied fruits, candied, dried or dried fruits, berries, honey, jam, etc.

To make lollipop windows in the house, crumble the lollipops into crumbs, and when the gingerbread is ready, pour the lollipop crumbs into the opening of the windows and put in the oven for a few minutes until melted.

You can insert a small flashlight into the finished house, then it will glow with a completely fabulous light! And do not forget the main thing - you can build gingerbread houses only if you are in a good mood! :))