The story of the gingerbread man is as old as the world, but it came to us relatively recently. An interesting and tasty tradition, filled with Christmas aromas and homely warmth, was liked by many. Most of us learned about the existence of the gingerbread man from fairy tales or films, but he is by no means a fantasy of the authors, but, on the contrary, a very real character from life. Who is this, this recipe for its creation is shrouded in many stories, fabulous and not so fabulous.
How it was
A long time ago, Elizabeth I decided to surprise her guests and present them with an unusual Christmas treat. She ordered cookies to be baked, resembling the shape of the noble invited persons. The chefs did a great job: the delicacy was decorated with intricate swirls of glaze and turned out to be surprisingly tasty. And the idea itself turned out to be very successful: the guests were interested in recognizing themselves in the sweet and aromatic treat. Word spread about it, and soon the idea of baking bread in the shape of little men had already settled in the homes of ordinary people. So the tasty and kind one set off to travel around the world. new year tradition- Christmas gingerbread man. The recipe for its preparation has changed, improved and today it has come to us, perhaps at its best, it is customary to bake it, put it in multi-colored holiday bags and give it to children, and they also decorate the Christmas tree and the house, treat guests, and according to legend, the gingerbread man is Santa’s favorite delicacy. Klaus.
Such different people
Essentially any Gingerbread Cookie can serve as the basis from which a gingerbread man will be made. The cooking recipe may be different, but there is certainly a little in each fragrant ginger And different spices. The shape of the cookies may also vary. These can be boys and girls, snowmen and various fantastic fairy-tale heroes. You can dilute them with cookies in the shape of snowflakes or However, who has enough imagination for what? Special attention should be paid to decoration. Traditionally, the little man has eyes, a mouth and buttons on his shirt, which are treasured by the cheerful hero from the fairy tale. You can decorate with icing, raisins, and make a mouth out of lemon or orange peel. To decorate a Christmas tree with it, you should make a small hole in the dough in advance, through which you can then pass a ribbon and use it to hang the little man.
Making a mold
In fact, today such baking is not a problem; almost every store sells the form. The gingerbread man can be cut out using a pastry cutter or baked in silicone molds. By the way, the size can also be different - from very tiny to large and voluminous cookies. If you don’t find such utensils in your store, don’t worry. This is not at all a reason to think that the gingerbread man will not come to visit your kids on Christmas Eve. Cookie template can be cut from plain paper and give him the silhouette that suits you best. All that remains is to roll out the dough, place a paper pattern on top and cut it into shape with a regular knife.
There is one more idea you can use. The gingerbread man mold can be made from thin tin tape. All that remains is to give it the shape of a man. For the material, you can use an empty can of Coca-Cola or other drink. Cut off the top and bottom of the can. Cut the resulting cylinder in half - this will give you a rectangular sheet. All that remains is to cut long strips, give them shape and fasten the edges. This pattern is placed on the rolled out ginger dough and with a light press the gingerbread man is cut out. You can use the cookie recipe from this article.
Gingerbread Cookies Recipe
In fact, it can be anything, but if you haven’t made ginger cookies before, we will be happy to tell you a couple great recipes. And even if ginger cookies are not accepted in your home, don’t give up on the idea. You just need to bake favorite cookies your family in the shape of people and decorate them.
For 700 g of flour, take: 100 g of margarine, a glass of sugar, half a glass of molasses, an egg, 2 tsp. ground: cinnamon, ginger and cloves, 1 tsp. soda and salt (pinch).
Arm yourself with a mixer and beat the sugar with softened butter until a homogeneous plastic mass, then add the egg and mix well. Add the remaining ingredients to the mixture and, continuing to operate the mixer at low speed, gradually add the flour. Place the dough in a bag and let it cool in the refrigerator for 1.5 - 2 hours.
Roll out the dough into a 1.5 cm thick cake and cut out cookies. Place on a baking sheet lined with paper and bake for 15 minutes at 190 degrees. Cool and decorate to your taste.
Honey ginger cookies
For 1 kilogram of flour take: ½ kg honey, 200 g granulated sugar, 300 g margarine, 2 eggs, 50 g cocoa, baking powder - 2 tsp. Add spices to taste: ground dried ginger, nutmeg, vanilla, cinnamon, cloves, allspice and black pepper.
Melt honey with sugar and margarine, sugar should completely dissolve. Sift the flour; when the honey mass has cooled, combine. Add ground spices, eggs. Knead the dough. It should be smooth and not stick to your hands or table. Roll it into a ball, put it in a bag and put it in the refrigerator for an hour.
The dough is rolled out to a thickness of 1 cm. The gingerbread man (template) is placed on top and the product is cut out. Line a baking tray with baking paper, arrange the cookies and place in the oven for 10 minutes (temperature 180 degrees). Cool. Prepare multi-colored glaze and decorate the cookies.
Do you know?
The gingerbread man has a fun and busy life. He became a real hero of films and cartoons. And almost every child from Western countries knows the fairy tale “About Gingerbread Man" The most interesting thing is that the main character in it is a little man from gingerbread dough- completely repeats the story of our Kolobok, who jumped out of the oven and left his grandparents. Many things happen to a man different stories, each narrator tells them in his own way. But the fairy tale ends, nevertheless, just as sadly - the gingerbread traveler is eaten by the cunning and sneaky Fox.
Ground ginger powder gives gingerbread a beautiful creamy color and an unusual “festive” taste.
Ground ginger powder gives the gingerbread a beautiful creamy color and an unusual “festive” taste. The rest of the set of products is no different from the ingredients for regular honey shortcrust pastry. In order for the glaze to dry instantly and the baked goods to crisp nicely, the eggs must be very fresh.
First, combine honey, sugar and ginger powder.
The products are stirred and placed on low heat.
The beneficial properties of honey are destroyed when boiling. You need to catch the moment when the entire mass has become homogeneous, and boiling has not yet begun. According to the recipe, it is best to heat the ginger honey base in a water bath.
IN hot honey You can't add soda. You should wait a little until the mass becomes warm. Then throw in the soda and stir.
Cut the butter into cubes in advance to make it soft. The butter is combined with the sweet base of the dough.
Sift the flour and pour into a bowl.
Add eggs.
Knead the dough. It turns out softly creamy and elastic. Roll it into a ball and put it in the refrigerator for half an hour. Can be wrapped in cling film. If necessary, it can be stored in the refrigerator for 24 hours, the taste of future baked goods will not change.
Roll out the dough on a floured board or directly on baking paper. The optimal layer thickness is 0.5 centimeters. If you plan to hang the gingerbread men on your tree, poke a small round hole near the top edge.
Draw the contours of the figures; you can print out the contour drawings found on the Internet. The main condition is that the drawing must be concise and expressive in order to be able to beautifully decorate our gingerbread icing.
Focusing on paper outline, cut out figures.
The future gingerbread cookies do not need to be pierced with a fork; during baking, the dough rises evenly, so the surface will be smooth. Then bake in a preheated oven for 20 minutes. Temperature – 170-180 degrees.
Then beat the egg white, add all of it in two additions. powdered sugar, beat again. The resulting glaze is used to paint only on cooled gingerbread.
Place the glaze in a small plastic bag and cut off a corner. Squeeze out through the resulting hole. For drawing, you can buy a special syringe or cooking packages triangular shape.
When drawing gingerbread men, first the outline is outlined with icing, then the face is drawn with dots. Clothes are decorated with dots and curls. The glaze dries in 20-30 minutes. Gingerbread men are a wonderful New Year's gift.
Bon appetit!
For some, gingerbread men are culinary symbol Catholic Christmas, which is even used to decorate Christmas trees; some people know this character from the cartoon “Shrek”, and even in the Guinness Book of Records, gingerbread men have left their mark. And also the gingerbread man is the brother of Kolobok, who is closer to us. Gingerbread men are delicious, funny, interesting. You can eat them, or you can keep them as a souvenir. They will not leave anyone indifferent and therefore it is worth preparing them, which is what we will do today!
For the test:
- Eggs 2 pcs.
- Liquid honey (molasses) 1 cup
- Flour (wheat, pancake) 5 cups
- Butter (margarine for baking) 1 cup
- Sugar 1 cup
- Cocoa ( instant coffee) 1 table. spoon
- Salt 0.5 teaspoon spoons
- Baking soda 3 teaspoons. spoons
- Ground ginger 2 tsp. spoons
- Ground cinnamon 2 teaspoons. spoons
- Cloves (powder) 1 tsp. spoon
For the glaze:
- Egg white 1 pc.
- Lemon juice 2 table. spoons
- Powdered sugar 250 g
Making gingerbread men:
Step 1: Preparing a template for gingerbread men.
It will be more convenient and easier to cut out people from dough if you already have a template ready. So the little people will turn out the same, and you will spend much less effort. It’s very easy to make a template - use scissors to cut out a figure of a man from a thick sheet of paper. You can even print the proposed photo and make a template based on it. Ready template put it aside and move on.
Step 2: Preparing the dough for gingerbread men.
There are a lot of options for preparing the dough, but the option I propose has already been tested and tested more than once. Mix in a deep saucepan butter, salt, soda and spices - ginger, cloves and cinnamon. Add sugar and liquid honey and, using a mixer, begin to beat until smooth.
Cocoa or coffee needs to be dissolved with 4 tablespoons of boiling water, let it cool and then pour into the future dough, adding eggs. Add 3 cups of flour and continue beating. Add the remaining flour and begin kneading the dough with your hands. Try not to knead the dough for too long. It should be quite dense, wrap it in cling film and put it in the refrigerator. It is better to leave it overnight and continue cooking in the morning, but try to leave it for at least 4-5 hours.
Step 3: Forming gingerbread men.
When the dough has rested, take it out of the refrigerator, remove the film and place it on a rolling surface. We need to roll it out like usual shortbread dough. To prevent the dough from sticking to the table and rolling pin, you need to lightly sprinkle them with flour. However, try to minimize the addition of flour so as not to spoil the taste of the future cookies.
Using a template, cut out little people from the rolled out dough and place them on a baking tray lined with baking paper. Bake cookies in the oven at 160 degrees for about 13-15 minutes. Ready cookies Remove from the oven and leave on the counter to cool.
Step 4: Make the icing and decorate the gingerbread men.
While the little men are cooling, we can easily prepare the glaze - separate the egg white from the egg and beat it with a mixer into a strong foam. Then add powdered sugar and continue beating. When you get a homogeneous cream, pour lemon juice and mix thoroughly. The glaze is ready! By using pastry syringe We apply glaze to the little people, drawing their faces, clothes with buttons and anything else your imagination desires.
When all the little men are decorated, you need to let the glaze harden - you can dry the cookies in the oven, or you can simply leave them at room temperature for several hours, or better yet, overnight.
Step 5: Serve gingerbread men.
Gingerbread men can be crunched on their own, or they can be combined with tea, milk, cocoa or coffee. Please children, surprise guests - this is perfect solution for dessert on New Year's table. Bon appetit!
- You can change some ingredients, for example, butter for vegetable oil, soda for baking powder. But main ingredient- ginger - must be present in any recipe, it is thanks to it that these cookies have such a popular taste.
- Instead of a cookie template, you can use regular cookie cutters.
- If you don’t have a pastry syringe, you can replace it with a regular cooking bag - cut a corner of a clean plastic bag, and squeeze out the glaze using it.
- Colored glaze can be obtained using dyes. If the cookies are large, then colored buttons can be depicted using m&m’s.
Cooking instructions
1 hour 30 minutes + 1 hour Print
1. Add butter, sugar and salt to a bowl. Mix all this with a mixer. Mixer tool Beat egg whites, and it’s also convenient to knead other substances like minced meat or dough not by hand (as this requires effort and time), but with the help of a mixer like KitchenAid. For example, the Artisan model has ten speed modes and three different attachments for working with any consistency, and it is also a universal food processor.
2. Add honey to the resulting mass and mix. It is better to use liquid, viscous honey, which will greatly simplify your work. Tool Honey dispenser The device holds the honey in the grooves, so that it flows gradually onto a dish or just onto the bread. You can also use it to add honey to various drinks. Metal and silicone ones are much more hygienic than their wooden counterparts.
3. Add the egg and mix again.
4. Let's move on to spices. You can add the spices you like and as much as you want. But don't overdo it. In addition, you can add a spoonful of cocoa so that the cookies are dark in color and the decorations on the cookies will be more visible. Mix it all.
5. Form the dough. Add baking powder and gradually add flour. And we begin to knead the dough. Add the remaining flour. Flour seeder tool Flour must be sifted even if you grind it yourself and guarantee the absence of lumps and pellets. Waking up through the sieve, the flour is loosened, saturated with oxygen, the dough rises better and then has a better texture. You can sift using any fine sieve or, for example, a special OXO seeder, which works on the principle of a meditative rocking chair.
6. Form the dough into a ball. Wrap it in cling film and put it in the refrigerator for about an hour.
7. After an hour, we begin to roll out the chilled dough, first sprinkle the surface on which you will roll the dough with flour. (no thicker than 1 cm)
8. Take the cookie cutters you like and start cutting out.
9. Place baking parchment on a baking sheet and transfer the cookies to the pan.
Tool Baking paper
Open pies and quiches for even baking, it is better to place them in the oven on a wire rack, and to prevent the sauce boiling from the heat from dripping between the rods, baking paper will help. For example, the Finns produce a good one - it is quite dense and is already divided into sheets that are easy to get out of the box. And nothing more is required from paper.
10. Place in an oven preheated to 180 degrees. Tool Oven thermometer How the oven actually heats up, even if you set a specific temperature, can only be understood with experience. It is better to have a small thermometer on hand that is placed in the oven or simply hung on the grill. And it is better that it shows degrees Celsius and Fahrenheit simultaneously and accurately - like a Swiss watch. The thermometer is important when it is necessary to strictly observe temperature regime: say in the case of baking.
This sweet creature evokes affection: rosy cheeks, glazed eyes, elegant buttons. He appears at Christmas and gives the feeling of a fairy tale. The gingerbread man is a funny creature with a ginger scent. He can be called an emigrant from European and American countries, who has his own life story.
Who is the "gingerbread man"?
Even though it is created from natural products, today it is commonly used as decoration. The gingerbread man goes straight from the kitchen under the Christmas tree. Unlike more edible cookies, it is somewhat dry and hard, so it does not particularly pretend to be a delicacy.
The Gingerbread Man is a character from an American fairy tale, which is in many ways similar to the Russian story "Kolobok". According to the plot of the fairy-tale legend, he is sculpted and decorated by his grandparents, from whom he runs away. The main character manages to protect himself from a cow, horse, and pig, which he is very proud of. However, the cunning red fox lures the gingerbread rascal into the river, invites him to sit on her nose, and successfully dines on him. As many historical facts testify, the gingerbread man’s great-grandfather was an authoritative person at the court of Elizabeth I herself. In the distant sixteenth century, gingerbread figurines were created in the court kitchen, which exactly repeated the images of the queen’s guests. But ordinary peasants also passed on this Christmas tradition from generation to generation.
How is a gingerbread man created?
It's very easy to bake gingerbread men to decorate your Christmas tree. It is enough to have flour (4 cups), butter, sugar, chicken eggs, honey, salt, soda, pepper, ginger and cloves in the house. Flour is mixed with spices, butter with sugar, honey and eggs are added, and the dough is kneaded. After it has stood in the cold for a couple of hours, roll out the layer, cut out the little people and put it in the oven for 20 minutes. And then they are “revived” with the help of glaze (whites beaten with powdered sugar).
A mold for people can be made from thick cardboard. Used for decoration sweet mastic. The idea of a Christmas man turned out to be interesting for producers of games, films, mobile applications. He made a successful debut in a minor role in the cartoon by Andrew Adamson. The gingerbread hero is mentioned in the lyrics of famous musical groups. And talented vocalist Melanie Martinez dedicated a Christmas song to him. And today, like centuries ago, the cheerful man made from dough with ginger delights people all over the world with his presence at the enchanting Christmas holiday.
Kaluga region, Borovsky district, Petrovo village
- light family celebration, which is celebrated throughout the Earth. On this special night of reconciliation, everyone wishes each other well. This is a magical time for gifts, sincere smiles and fulfillment of desires, and it is also a wonderful occasion to meet with loved ones and friends and remember the joyful moments of the past year. ETNOMIR invites you to plunge into the traditional atmosphere of the holiday.
Guests will enjoy songs and dances, a fun folk show and traditional folk carols from mummers. And, of course, Christmas dinner!
ETNOMIR loves and honors traditions!
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