Gingerbread cookies

Name: Gingerbread cookies
Prep time: 50 min
Cook time: 15 min
Total time: 65 min
Yield: 15
Ingredients: Powdered ginger 2 tsp; Flour 00 3 cups; Ground cloves 1 pinch; Nutmeg 1 pinch; Cinnamon powder 2 tsp; Baking soda ¼ tsp; Sugar ¾ cup; Butter cold from the fridge 1 stick; Eggs 1; Fine salt 1 pinch; Honey 2 tbsp; Powdered sugar 1 cup; Egg whites 1

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Vegetarian

Difficulty: Average
Prep time: 50 min
Cook time: 15 min
Makes: 15 pieces
Cost: Average
Note + the rest time of the dough in the refrigerator

PRESENTATION

Christmas holidays just wouldn't be the same without the lights, films with and above all, Christmas cookies, like gingerbread cookies, a delicious and easy to make recipe, perfect for enriching festive menus. A favorite in the Anglo-Saxon world and here too now, gingerbread has northern European origins. Their rich and spicy flavor really does win everyone over! These cookies can be made in lots of different shapes: men, reindeer, Christmas trees, stockings or stars, anything goes, as long as it evokes the magic of Christmas. But we simply couldn't do without the gingerbread man, the most important of shapes for this cookies. A touch of royal icing and your gingerbread cookies will become whatever you want them to: characters from lots of delicious stories which evoke the Christmas holiday atmosphere, enriching Epiphany stockings with flavor, along with other typical treats, like sugar coal, cookie candy cane twists, soft toffees and delicious lollipops!

INGREDIENTS

Ingredients for around 15 gingerbread cookies: Powdered ginger 2 tsp (5 g); Flour 00 3 cups (350 g); Ground cloves 1 pinch; Nutmeg 1 pinch; Cinnamon powder 2 tsp (5 g); Baking soda ¼ tsp; Sugar ¾ cup (160 g); Butter 1 stick (110 g) - cold from the fridge; Eggs 1; Fine salt 1 pinch; Honey 2 tbsp (50 g)

For the glaze: Powdered sugar 1 cup (150 g); Egg whites 1

Preparation

How to prepare Gingerbread cookies

To make gingerbread cookies start by making the spicy shortcrust pastry: place the flour 1 and all the spices in a mixer with blades: the ground cloves, cinnamon powder, grated nutmeg and ginger powder 2. Add 1/4 of a teaspoon of baking soda 3

and the granulated sugar too 4. Now add a pinch of salt 5 and the honey 6.

Lastly, add the cold butter straight from the refrigerator and finely diced 7, blend the ingredients together, with short breaks to avoid overheating the mixture, until you obtain a sandy consistency 8. Place the dough onto a work top and create a classic well in the middle of it 9.

Pour one egg into the dip in the middle 10 and knead into the mixture, first with a fork 11 and then by hand. Knead fast 12

and once the dough takes on a firmer consistency 13, flatten it and cover with plastic wrap 14. Leave the dough to become firmer in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes. Once the resting time is up, remove the dough from the refrigerator, roll it out with a rolling pin onto a pastry board; sprinkle with flour, to create a layer that is between 7 mm and 1 cm thick 15.

Use whatever Christmas cookie molds you prefer, we have chosen classic gingerbread man ones 16. If you want, at this point you can make a hole at the top of the head of your gingerbread men, so that you can feed a ribbon through it and hang them from your Christmas tree. With these quantities you'll make around 15 cookies, (numbers may vary depending on what molds you use and their size) Place the cookies onto an oven tray lined with parchment paper 17 and bake them in a coventional oven preheated to 340°F (170°C) for around 15 minutes: times are approximate because each oven is different, so it is best to bake just a couple first, to find the optimal cooking time for the oven you're using. Once baked, remove the cookies from the oven and leave them to fully cool 18.

In the meantime, prepare the royal icing: place the egg whites in a bowl 19, start beating using an electric whisk at medium speed, and gradually add the powdered sugar, using a spoon 20; continue adding it until you obtain a homogeneous mixture of desired consistency 21.

Place the icing in a single-use pastry bag 22 and cut the tip off to create a small hole 23; decorate the biscuits by tracing the outline and enriching gingerbread men with whatever details you like. The gingerbread cookies are ready to be enjoyed 24.

Storage

We recommend storing gingerbread cookies in a tin box, for 4-5 days at most.
The cookie dough can be stored in the refrigerator for 4-5 days or frozen, enveloped in plastic wrap, for around 1 month.
Place in the refrigerator to defrost, before rolling it out to make the cookies.

Tips

This dough must be kneaded very fast and left in the refrigerator to become firmer, so that it can be used easily. So when cutting it out into shapes, be sure to place it in a fresh environment and to sprinkle the pastry board with flour. Only roll out as much dough as you need, leave the rest in the refrigerator until you need more.