Preparing gingerbread dough using the custard method. Making gingerbread dough - the secrets of delicious baking. Gingerbread dough

Gingerbread cookies were prepared for all holidays and made different shapes and size. They owe their name to the spices that have been part of the recipe since ancient times. Gingerbread, which originally included honey and molasses, has today undergone some changes. The fact is that sugar has become much more accessible than honey, and products began to be made using it. Below we will look different variants test.

Gingerbread dough: a recipe from time immemorial

As mentioned above, gingerbread is one of the most ancient sweets in Rus'. According to some sources, they were baked back in the 10th century. When modern housewives prepare gingerbread dough, the recipe, of course, differs from that of old Russian sweets. However, three can be distinguished - honey, sugar and sugar-honey. It contains both sugar and honey. You can prepare the dough using two different ways. With the simplified version, the products become stale faster. The second option takes more time, but the gingerbread cookies stay fresh and soft longer. Below we will look at both methods.

Choux pastry

This is the most difficult option that a housewife who decides to make gingerbread dough can use. This recipe is easy to master and will delight you with seven delicious gingerbread cookies in the future.

• So, you need to take 750 g of flour, 1 glass of sugar, 60 g of honey, 100 g of butter, 1 egg, 0.5 teaspoon of soda, 0.5 tsp. spices to taste, 60 ml water. If all proportions are observed, you will get approximately 1 kg of dough.

As you can see, the gingerbread dough recipe is not as complicated as it might seem at first glance. So, in order to make it, put honey, sugar, water in a saucepan and heat it without bringing it to a boil. Then it is recommended to add half the flour and spices to the mixture. It is best to stir the product for the product with a wooden spatula. Moreover, if you leave the flour in the syrup without stirring for at least a couple of minutes, then lumps will appear in the dough, which will be difficult to get rid of. Cool the resulting mixture to room temperature, and then add the rest of the flour, eggs and baking powder. Ready dough should be soft. To do tasty dish, the dough must be cut right away, otherwise the finished gingerbread cookies will be of poor quality. This gingerbread dough recipe is closest to the original old version.

Simple test option

For housewives who do not want to spend a lot of time preparing dough, the following recipe is suitable. You need to put honey in a saucepan, add butter, mashed with sugar, spices and knead all the ingredients for a couple of minutes. Then add flour (preferably sifted) and soda and knead the dough. If crystals have formed in the honey, then it must be heated, but under no circumstances should it be brought to a boil. This will cause it to lose its aroma, which means the product will not be as tasty. Honey for gingerbread cookies should be at room temperature. What consistency the gingerbread dough should be - the recipe with photo will demonstrate only approximately. You need to be able to determine this by touch.

Making a Christmas treat

Dough recipe for gingerbread house differs from the usual one in that here it should be more fragrant and festive. There are many options, and every housewife can choose exactly the one she likes. For example, excellent gingerbread dough (recipe from Gerda) is obtained if all proportions are strictly observed.

• So, we need: 0.5 kg of honey, 0.3 kg butter and 0.3 kg cane sugar, 50-100 g cocoa (depending on whether you want to make the house chocolate or not). You will also need 3 tablespoons of rum, a little baking powder, a pinch or two of cinnamon, a pinch of ground cardamom, a little ground cloves, a pinch and a little fresh grated root. For spices, it is also recommended to add a pinch of ground anise seeds, a little star anise (ground), ground nutmeg, vanilla, the zest of one orange and lemon. This proportion will require a little more than 1 kg of flour.

Of course, every housewife makes a unique gingerbread dough. Skripkin’s recipe, for example, can be slightly modernized by removing such a large number of spices. The dough recipe with modifications is given below.

• We will need: 500 grams of honey, 300 grams of sugar, 300 grams of butter, 50 grams of cocoa, zest of one lemon, zest of an orange, vanilla to taste.

Thus, it is clear that gingerbread dough (recipe) and products made from it do not require high culinary skills and can be done even by a novice housewife.

Making gingerbread dough: recipe for cookies

Many people know gingerbread men only as characters from the cartoon "Shrek". Meanwhile, these are traditional cookies for Catholic Christmas, which can be used to please children on any other day.

So, how to make this gingerbread dough? See the recipe below.

We will need:

• 3 eggs.
• 1.5 cups molasses.
• 6 cups sifted flour.
• Approximately 300 g margarine.
• 250 g sugar.
• 2 tablespoons of cocoa or instant coffee.
• 4 spoons of soda, quenched in vinegar.
• A little ground ginger.
• A pinch of ground cinnamon.
• A pinch of clove powder.

How to make the cookies themselves?

For cookies, we first need a template and, of course, gingerbread dough. The recipe was given above, but we will duplicate it again. Thanks to the template, the little people will turn out identical and beautiful. Gingerbread dough and products made from it are distinguished by the fact that they hold their shape perfectly, and any figures can be made from them. The dough preparation process itself is simple. You need to mix oil, spices, soda and salt in a saucepan, and then add sugar and honey.

You can mash everything with a spoon, or you can beat it with a mixer. Dissolve cocoa in a couple of tablespoons of boiling water, let cool to room temperature and add to the dough at the same time as the eggs. After this, add 3.5 cups of flour, continuing to beat the mass with a mixer. Add the remaining flour and knead the dough with your hands. It should not be too dense so that it rolls out easily. Put away finished product in the refrigerator for at least 5-6 hours, after wrapping it in cling film. After this, take out the dough and place it on a board, rolling it out into a thin layer. To prevent it from sticking, sprinkle flour on the rolling pin. However, you need to handle flour more carefully so as not to spoil the taste of the cookies. Cut out little people from the rolled out dough and bake until done. Afterwards, you can separately make icing and decorate the finished cookies.

Variations in the recipe

Some components can be replaced. For example, take vegetable oil instead of butter, and add baking powder instead of soda. But ginger must be present in any case. It is this that gives cookies a unique taste that is loved by both adults and children all over the world. If you don’t have molds, you can make a template yourself from thick paper or cardboard.

Not every housewife has one in her kitchen. But don’t be upset, as it can be replaced with a so-called pastry bag. To do this, simply cut off a corner of a plastic bag, and the glaze is already squeezed out of it.

Colored glaze is made by adding food coloring to it. If the cookies are large, then multi-colored buttons can be laid out from candies.

Gingerbread house No. 2: ideas for inspiration

Gingerbread dough and products made from it are an excellent gift option for family and friends for any occasion. Below we will look at the technology for making a gingerbread house. The dough recipe for a gingerbread house is not very different from a simple gingerbread recipe.

Heat honey, margarine and sugar. Whisk, adding cocoa, until all lumps disappear. The mass should be homogeneous and should not boil.

Mix flour with spices and baking powder. If desired, you can add orange zest.

Add eggs and rum or cognac into the heated honey mixture in two steps.

Add flour and spices to the honey mixture and knead the dough thoroughly. It shouldn't leak. On average it takes 15-20 minutes to knead. However, do not try to mix in all the flour at once. The dough will gradually cool down. It must be placed in the refrigerator, first wrapped in cling film. Let the dough rest for at least 5 hours.

"Construction" of a sweet house

Make a template of the parts of the house - walls, roof and other figures that you see fit. Roll out the dough and cut out the details of the house. Bake for 20-25 minutes until done.

The foundation of the future house should be gingerbread. It is to this that the walls are attached.

The windows are made from marmalade or caramel. True, in conditions of high humidity it will most likely melt. Therefore, it is best to take candies without filling or marmalade slices.

Transparent caramel should not be used. It does not melt well, and even if it does melt, it still flows out of the “windows” of the house, ruining the entire product. If there is high humidity in the house, it is not recommended to cook caramel yourself - it will still melt and leak out. This means that the work will go down the drain. But in any case, the most important thing is well-prepared gingerbread dough. The recipe (Pokhlebkin suggests slightly different proportions) assumes a dense and non-sticky dough. We must constantly remember this.

For the house you need to make glaze or icing. For this powdered sugar with proteins lemon juice and rub with starch so that there are no bubbles. The finished mass is placed in or in a milk bag with a corner cut off. You can also use a regular paper file; it is quite dense and easy to work with.

Gingerbread cookies with sugar

We looked at several ways to make gingerbread dough. The recipe without honey is very popular nowadays, since honey is a rather expensive product. Below we will consider old recipe gingerbread without honey. They turn out somewhat unusual, but also very tasty. So, for the test we need:

• 300 g of sifted flour (in principle, the recipe may indicate more, but then the dough will turn out very tough).
• 40 g butter.
• 50 g sugar.
• Cinnamon and cardamom to taste.
• 50 g raisins.
• 1 egg.

Mix sugar, cinnamon and cardamom.

Then mix sugar with spices, flour and egg with butter. The dough should be quite dense, but not stiff, otherwise the product will be harsh and quickly become stale.

Place small dough balls on a greased baking sheet. Alternatively, you can roll out the dough into small flat cakes and make shaped edges.

Bake for 15-20 minutes. However, if you are making balls, they will need to sit in the oven a little longer to bake completely.

Cover if you want finished goods frosting, sugar pearls and chocolate. If you strictly follow the recipe, they will turn out almost unsweetened. Therefore, chocolate and icing are a must. You can change the amount of sugar, proportionally increasing the amount of other components.

Dear hearts, beloved by all, Russian gingerbread. They remain fresh for a long time, they can be stored for at least two weeks, they will only dry out slightly, but will not spoil. It is best to prepare the gingerbread dough ahead of time, a few days before baking. During this time, the dough has time to become well saturated with the aromas of seasonings.

The more varied the palette of seasonings is used for gingerbread dough, the tastier it is. In addition to the main ingredients, gingerbread dough you can add ginger, ground almonds or hazelnuts, cocoa, lemon or candied orange peel. Ready-made gingerbread cookies are usually decorated with sugar icing, sprinkled with grated nuts and brightly colored confectionery toppings.

• flour – 480 g,
• butter – 120 g,
• cane sugar(brown) – 120 g,
• honey – 250 g,
• soda – 2 tsp,
• baking powder – 6 g (1 tsp),
• nutmeg (grated) – 1 tsp,
• cardamom – 1 tsp,
• cloves - 3 buds,
• allspice – 3 peas,
• cinnamon – 1 tsp,
• vanillin - 1 tsp,
• eggs - 1 yolk.

Gingerbread dough - recipe

Making gingerbread dough is not at all difficult. In a wide saucepan with a thick bottom over low heat you need to dissolve 120 g of butter, 250 g of honey and 120 g of cane brown sugar. Warming up and dissolving will take no more than 3 minutes. Do not bring the mixture to a boil.

While the contents of the pan are heating, all the seasonings listed in the recipe, even if they are already in powder form, need to be ground in a coffee grinder. There they will mix more evenly, their degree of grinding will be equal, and the taste of any one of the seasonings will not stand out, and the dough will acquire a specific gingerbread taste. Take one teaspoon each of nutmeg powder, cardamom powder, ground cinnamon and vanilla.

Add to them 3 peas of allspice (don’t worry, the gingerbreads will not taste bitter) and 3 buds of cloves. When you grind all this in a coffee grinder, take a full tablespoon of the resulting gingerbread seasoning.

Add the gingerbread seasoning to the pan, where by this time all the ingredients, including the cane sugar, have already dissolved.

Add both types of baking powder to the flour: 2 tsp. soda 1 tsp. baking powder. Remove the mixture from the stove and stir about a third of the flour and baking powder directly into the hot mixture. While the dough is hot, knead it with a spoon. When the flour is evenly distributed over the dough, beat one yolk into the dough.

Knead the yolk into the dough, then, gradually adding flour, using your hands, knead the gingerbread dough.

Let the dough cool. If the dough is not very dense, it means there is not enough flour in it, and during baking the gingerbread cookies will rise unevenly and will bubble, which is not correct. Add a handful of flour and still knead the dough.

Then wrap the gingerbread in several layers of cling film to prevent it from drying out, and refrigerate for two days. If you are in a hurry, let the dough rest for at least 12 hours.

Once the time is up, start baking.

Gingerbread is a traditional dessert of Russian cuisine beloved by many, which combines the sweetness of cakes and the richness of bread. According to some sources, they appeared in Rus' back in the 9th century. And what recipes have not been invented during this time. But, as you know, you can’t make real gingerbread without honey.

The main products used to make gingerbread were honey and Rye flour. The honey content in this mixture reached half. And honey gingerbread was called differently in those days - honey bread. Much later, already in the 12th century, they began to be called “honey gingerbread” because they began to add different spices, which changed their taste.

Honey gingerbreads, fragrant, printed, soft, brewed, steamed, with kefir, airy, with or without glaze, with spices and additives have become the main decoration in home tea parties and at festive table. Prepare such delicious pastries from available and inexpensive products, which can always be found in the refrigerator, can be easily and quickly. And even the most inexperienced cook can do this at home.

Let's look at several recipes for making delicious and aromatic honey gingerbread.

To prepare homemade honey gingerbread classic recipe required:

• Honey of any kind – 250 g
• Flour – 450 g
• Granulated sugar – 75 g
• Butter (or margarine) – 1 tablespoon
• Baking soda - ½ teaspoon (or baking powder - 2 teaspoons)
• Spices (vanillin, cinnamon, cloves) – add to taste according to your choice
• Egg – 1 pc.

Heat honey, butter, sugar, spices over low heat, stirring constantly. Set aside and let cool. Add the egg and warm honey mixture to a cup with flour and baking powder. Mix everything well, set it in the cold for two hours (if you are in a hurry, you can do it for one hour).

Then roll out the dough to about the thickness of a finger and cut out the gingerbread cookies into the desired shape. Bake for 8-10 minutes over medium heat on a greased and lightly floured baking sheet. Ready-made gingerbread cookies can be decorated with any glaze.

Read also: Lenten monastery gingerbread: recipes for honey delicacy

Honey gingerbreads with kefir

Delicate honey gingerbreads for this simple recipe Even a novice cook can prepare it.

Main ingredients:

• Kefir (yogurt) – 300 ml
• Eggs – 2 pcs. (1 white and 2 yolks for dough and 1 white for fudge)
• Margarine (or butter) – 100 g
• Granulated sugar - 1 cup for dough and 2/3 cup for fudge
• Honey – 1 tbsp. l.
• Flour – 2.5 cups

The first step is to separate the yolk from the white (we need the white for fudge), beat the remaining yolk and another egg with sugar. Pour all the kefir into this mixture, add honey, melted margarine, dissolved soda in vinegar (1 tsp) and salt. Add the sifted flour there and mix everything.

The main thing here is not to overdo it with flour. To prevent the gingerbreads from turning out heavy and tight, the dough should not be very steep.

Roll out the dough into a layer and cut out gingerbread cookies of different shapes. Bake on a greased baking sheet (or place the pieces on parchment) for 20-25 minutes (temperature approximately 180 degrees).

While the gingerbread cookies are baking, prepare the fudge. To do this, beat the sugar with the egg white until a white mass is formed, which should not be thick so that it can easily lubricate the surface of our gingerbread cookies.

After 20 minutes, remove the gingerbread from the oven, brush with fondant and place in the oven for another 10 minutes, lowering the temperature slightly.

Custard honey gingerbreads

Thanks to this method of preparation, custard honey gingerbreads are soft and remain tender and tasty for a long time, so they can be prepared for future use for several days.

To prepare custard honey gingerbread we will need:

• Flour – 1.5 cups
• Natural honey – ½ cup
• Butter – 1 pack
• Egg – 1 pc.
• Rum – 1 tablespoon
• Sour cream – 30-40 g
• Spices and seasonings – cinnamon (you can add nutmeg, cardamom, cloves)

Heat the oil and honey in a bowl to approximately 75 degrees, gradually add ½ the amount of flour, spices and quickly knead everything. The mass should be dense and need to be cooled. Add the rest of the ingredients to the cooled mass and mix well until smooth.

Roll out the dough, cut out the gingerbread cookies and bake for 10-15 minutes at 200 degrees. If desired, gingerbread cookies can be decorated with icing.

Read also: Popular recipes for fragrant honey cinnamon cookies

Steamed honey gingerbread with walnuts

The peculiarity of steaming honey gingerbread is that they are not baked. They are prepared in a double boiler or in a slow cooker. And yet, they turn out soft and rosy.

We will need:

• Flour – 1.5 cups
• Sugar – ½ cup
• Butter – 50 g
• Honey – 1 tbsp. l. with a slide
• Egg – 1 pc.
• Walnuts – ½ cup
• Soda – ½ tsp.

Preparation:

1. We prepare the nuts by chopping them in a blender or with a knife.
2. Mix the dough: in a separate bowl, dissolve the egg, honey, butter and sugar in a water bath until smooth. Add soda there and stir until thickened.
3. Then remove the pan from the water bath and add flour. Mix everything well. At the end of kneading, add nuts to the dough.
4. We form balls from the dough with hands dipped in water and place them in a steamer or multicooker.
5. Cook for 40 minutes.

Recipe for New Year's honey and gingerbread cookies

Delicious honey-ginger gingerbreads with a special aroma cannot be classified as traditional Russian pastries. Rather, on the contrary, this dessert was and remains favorite delicacy Europeans and the main attribute of the Christmas table.

But, since other people’s traditions, whether we want it or not, are slowly migrating to us, we can, slightly disturbing the pine-tangerine aroma, prepare homemade gingerbread cookies with ginger on New Year’s days.

And if you show your imagination and please your loved ones original baked goods in the form of honey gingerbread cookies in the shape of a “gingerbread man”, this will certainly become the signature dessert on the New Year’s table.

For preparing aromatic honey gingerbread we will need the following ingredients:

• Flour – 5-6 cups
• Strong coffee (brewed) – 5 tbsp. l.
• Slaked soda (or baking powder) – 1.5 tsp.
• Ginger (freshly grated or dried) – 2 tsp.
• Chopped cloves – 0.5 tsp.
• Sugar – 1 glass
• Honey – 1 glass
• Butter (margarine) – 200 g
• Egg – 2 pcs.
• A little salt

Cooking process:

Mix flour, spices, salt and baking powder. Separately, beat the softened butter with sugar and honey and add coffee, eggs and part of the flour with spices. You need to mix everything with a mixer as much as possible.

Gingerbread cookies have long ceased to be a trivial pastry; now they are a real work of art, which sometimes allows one to reveal a real artist in the confectioner. In addition to the fact that such sweet masterpieces must be beautiful, they must also be tasty. To fulfill the last condition, you need to reveal the secret of how to properly prepare appetizing and aromatic gingerbread dough. Below are seven worthy recipes for different types gingerbread

Gingerbread dough for a house

A gingerbread house is a miniature fairy tale that you can create in your own kitchen. On New Year's holidays, such a culinary and architectural masterpiece will cause more admiration among adults and children than a decorated two-meter Christmas tree.

If, in anticipation of the upcoming holidays, the desire to create something like this awakens, then you need to roll up your sleeves and prepare:

• 250 g honey;
• 250 g sugar;
• 150 g butter;
• 1 egg;
• 25 g cocoa;
• 20 ml of rum or cognac;
• 5 g baking powder;
• 625 g flour;
• a bouquet of spices for gingerbread to taste.

Step by step kneading the dough:

1. Heat sugar, butter and honey on the stove until all grains and crystals are completely dissolved, the mixture should not boil.
2. Sift half the total amount of flour with cocoa, spices and baking powder.
3. Pour the egg and cognac, shaken into a homogeneous liquid, into the honey mixture that has cooled to a warm state. Next, add the flour mixture in small portions.
4. Add flour to the dough until the mixture becomes dense but still elastic. In order for all the properties of the dough to fully develop, it should be kept overnight or a day in the refrigerator.

For the walls and roof of the house, the dough needs to be rolled out into a layer 5 mm thick. If you put crushed caramel in the slots for windows, then after baking you will get windows with multi-colored glass. In this case, you just need to bake the gingerbreads on a greased vegetable oil parchment.

Cooking using the raw method

The raw method is considered simplified, since in this case there is no need to brew the flour, all ingredients are simply mixed at room temperature. The resulting dough is quite loose and at the same time viscous.

A simple recipe for these gingerbread cookies includes:

• 250 g sugar;
• 100 ml water;
• 50 g butter;
• 3 g soda;
• 1.5 g vanillin;
• 390–460 g flour.

Mixing algorithm:

1. IN warm water dissolve sugar with vanilla. When the syrup has cooled to room temperature, add soft butter to it and mix thoroughly.
2. Combine flour with soda, sift, and then stir into the dough in portions. Immediately after kneading, you can begin shaping and baking the products. The recommended thickness for rolling out the dough is 5 – 6 mm.

This gingerbread dough and products based on it have many advantages. First of all, in terms of the cost of products, it turns out to be cheaper than what is prepared from natural honey. In addition, honey is a known allergen, which is especially important for today’s generation of children. Well, we won’t heat the honey, since we simply don’t use it (as is known, overheated honey in large quantities is harmful).

Another good thing about this gingerbread dough recipe is that you can store it in the refrigerator for even a year. We made a larger portion, wrapped it in a bag or film, and then, as needed, cut off a piece and baked gingerbread. And the gingerbread cookies made from this dough turn out to be very tasty: they are not dry at all, incredibly aromatic, very appetizing and can also be stored ready-made for more than a year.

In the recipe for gingerbread dough, I suggest using 2 types of flour - wheat and rye. If you don’t have rye, cook it exclusively with wheat flour (any type). From the specified amount of ingredients you get a decent amount of ready-to-use dough - you will definitely get 30 medium-sized gingerbread cookies!

Ingredients:

(250 grams) (125 milliliters) (350 grams) (150 grams) (1 piece ) (2 pieces ) (100 grams) (0.5 teaspoon) (1 teaspoon) (1 teaspoon) (0.5 teaspoon) (1 pinch) (1 pinch)

Cooking the dish step by step with photos:

The gingerbread dough recipe includes the following ingredients: wheat flour and rye flour, water, granulated sugar, butter, one egg and two egg yolks, half a teaspoon of baking soda and a pinch of salt. I use cinnamon, cardamom, ginger and nutmeg as spices for gingerbread dough. All these additives are already in dry and ground form.

Let's start preparing gingerbread dough by making burnt sugar or burnt sugar. To do this, pour half of the granulated sugar (125 grams) into a thick-walled saucepan or deep frying pan (small diameter).

Place the bowl with sugar on the stove and begin to melt over a slightly lower than medium heat. First, a caramel of a pleasant golden hue forms at the bottom. You can use a spatula to help the sugar melt faster.

Then almost all of the sugar will disperse and turn into a beautiful mass of rich caramel color. But this is only an intermediate stage - we need burnt sugar.

Now is one of the most difficult moments - you need to catch the exact moment when smoke appears above the surface of the caramel and the mass becomes dark. But here it is important not to overcook the caramel, otherwise it will simply turn black and burn - you will have to start all over from the very beginning.

As soon as the mass has darkened, we begin to pour 125 milliliters of boiling water into it in parts (keep it ready, since it can burn at any moment). I tried very, very hard to capture the process of combining water and burnt sugar, but I think you understand that this is unrealistic. Stir the caramel with one hand, pour boiling water with the other, and take pictures at this moment... Moreover, at this moment the contents of the saucepan are more than active - bubbling and foaming to the very edge of the dish.

In just 10 seconds everything will calm down and our burnt sugar will completely dissolve in the water. Let's move on to the next stage.

Now it’s time to add 100 grams of butter to our burnt sugar base. Cold or soft is not so important, because it will completely disintegrate anyway.

Let it sit on the table and cool a little. The temperature of the contents of the dish needs to drop to 60-70 degrees, but I don’t have a thermometer. so I just wait 3-4 minutes.

Now we will brew wheat flour. We sift 130 grams in advance wheat flour and add it to the aromatic sugar-butter base, which is still fairly hot.

Mix everything with a spoon or fork so that there are no lumps left. You can use a whisk or mixer - it’s even faster and more convenient.

Let the custard base for the gingerbread dough cool again - this time to room temperature. I just took the saucepan out to the balcony, where everything cooled down in literally 10 minutes. Now it's time to introduce the eggs. Shake one whole chicken egg and 2 egg yolks a little with a fork and pour into a saucepan for the future gingerbread dough. Mix everything until it becomes homogeneous and smooth. Place the two whites you have left in the refrigerator for now and then use them for cooking. sugar icing for decorating finished gingerbread cookies.