Gingerbread Cookies
With Natalie Shevchenko
Run, run, fast as you can,
You can’t catch me, I’m the gingerbread man!
~ The Gingerbread Man, a fairy tale
When I see a gingerbread cookies one of the first thing that comes to my mind is the scene from Shrek cartoon, with a brave little Ginger Man…
As a baker and confectioner, I thought it would be shameful not to know the technic of decorating Christmas cookies with icing. That’s why my goal for this December was to practice at decoration of cookies with icing. And the recipe I chose for our New-Year`s-coming blog is GINGERBREAD cookies! Me and Natalie Shevchenko, teacher of Green Forest and Green Country, had a sort of back-to-childhood time decorating cookies at my green kitchen.
So what is gingerbread like today? Let`s see:
Gingerbread is a baked sweet containing ginger and sometimes cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, cardamom and anise, and sweetened with any combination of brown sugar, molasses, light or dark corn syrup, or honey.
Gingerbread can take the shape of thin, crisp cookies like snaps, Polish pierniczki , Czech pernik , Russian pryanik , Croatian licitars , Scandinavian pepparkakor and Dutch speculaas cut into hearts or other fanciful shapes. The Germans like a softer, puffier version known as lebkuchen (I`ve recently tried one, my friend brought it for me from Vienna)
But today we`ll bake more crispy version of gingerbread cookies and if you have time to decorate them with icing-it could be perfect present for your friends and relatives, because the readymade cookies could be kept up to a month!
Useful vocabulary
| Word | Definition | Translation |
|
nutmeg
|
East Indian tree widely cultivated in the tropics for its aromatic seed; source of two spices: nutmeg and mace | мускатний горіх |
| cloves | the dried flower bud of a tropical tree, used as an aromatic spice | гвоздика |
| molasses | thick dark syrup produced by boiling down juice from sugar cane; especially during sugar refining | патока, меляса |
| snaps | a crisp round cookie flavored with ginger | тверде імбирне печиво |
| Crisp | Firm but easily broken | хрустке |
Gingerbread Cookies
Ingredients:
70g butter
80g sugar
1 egg
250g flour
1 tbsp. cacao
1tsp. ginger
1 tsp. cinnamon
½ tsp. baking soda
For icing:
250g sugar powder
1 egg white
1 tbsp. lemon juice
2 tbsp. warm water
How to…
1. Preheat oven to 170 deg. Prepare baking sheets.
2. In a small bowl, whisk together flour, cacao, baking soda, salt, ginger and cinnamon until well blended.
3. In a large bowl beat butter, sugar, and egg on medium speed until well blended..
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4. Gradually stir in dry ingredients until blended and smooth.
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5. Wrap the dough in plastic and put into refrigerator for at least 30min (perfectly 1 hour).
6. Place dough on a lightly floured surface.
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7. Sprinkle flour over dough and rolling pin.
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8. Cut out cookies with desired cutter-- the ginger bread man is our favorite of course.
9. Space cookies least 3 sm apart.
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10. Bake for 7-10 minutes (the lower time will give you softer cookies).
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11. Remove cookie sheet from oven and allow the cookies to stand until the cookies are firm enough
12. After cookies are cool you may decorate them any way you like. We chose gingerbread man, Santa, star and snowflake)
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13. For icing, mix together 1 egg white with sugar powder, lemon juice and water for 5-7 min until thick creamy texture. Pour icing into decorating bag and have fun creating your gingerbread cookies.
Merry Christmas and Sweet New Year!!!
М. ПЛОЩА УКРАЇНСЬКИХ ГЕРОЇВ,
