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Honey-gingerbread cookies
How wonderful it is to have the opportunity to gather with family on the eve of the most magical holiday – New Year. Almost every family has its own New Year traditions, such as preparing a festive dinner. We will introduce you to the recipe for honey-gingerbread cookies, which are also worthy of the New Year table. Honey-gingerbread cookies can serve as a gift, decoration on the Christmas tree, or simply as a dessert with tea. Children will especially enjoy making this sweet treat at home, as this activity will help them immerse themselves in the magic.
Caloric content: 374 kcal per 100 grams of the dish.
Ingredients
Show ingredients
For the dough:
- 160 ml liquid honey;
- 100 g sugar;
- 2 tsp ground ginger;
- 1.5 tsp cinnamon;
- 130 g butter;
- 450 g flour;
- 1 egg;
- 1 tsp baking soda.
For the icing:
- 1 egg white;
- 1 tbsp powdered sugar;
- 1 tsp lemon juice.
Preparation
- We will make the base for the dough from honey and sugar. Take a large saucepan, preferably a five-liter container. Add sugar, honey, and spices. Slightly mix and put on medium heat, cooking the mixture while continuously stirring.
- Once you see that the sugar has dissolved, add the baking soda. At this stage, a vigorous reaction occurs in the form of the sweet mass rising. That is why we need a large pot, as there is a risk that the mass may overflow from the container. Intensively stir the mass, making sure it doesn't burn. The sugar-honey mixture will soon start to darken; continue to cook it to the desired shade that you would like for your cookies.
- As soon as we have cooked the mass to readiness, we immediately remove it from the heat, stir it, and add all the butter to the saucepan. Wait for the butter to completely melt. Now we need to add the egg to the dough, but do not rush to put it in the hot mixture, or it will curdle. Wait for the honey mass to cool to 50-55 degrees Celsius; usually, this takes about 5 minutes of stirring after turning off the heat.
- We introduce the flour into the honey mixture in three stages. Add two portions directly into the dough, and we will sprinkle the third while kneading on a mat. Knead the dough while it's still warm; do not wait for it to cool down. This way, we will get perfect cookies that definitely won't crack. Leave the ginger dough in a bag at room temperature for one hour.
- Roll out the dough using a bag or film: cover a piece of dough with film and roll it out with a rolling pin to 5-7 mm. Try doing this, and you will not see a single crack on the dough.
- Using cookie cutters, cut out shapes from the dough. If you do not have such forms, you can place a paper silhouette of your desired figure and cut the dough along the contour with a very sharp knife. Transfer the honey-gingerbread cookies to parchment, leaving 1.5-2 cm between them. Send to the oven at 180 degrees for 7-10 minutes on the 'bottom-top' mode without convection.
- Prepare the baked goods for decoration; to make it easier to do this, slightly press the still-warm cookie with a flat board to level its surface. After that, leave the cookies to cool for 1-2 hours. This is important for the further decoration of the dessert, as the icing will definitely spread on the surfaces of hot cookies.
- Now prepare the icing for decoration. Beat the egg white with the addition of lemon juice with a mixer on low power, gradually adding powdered sugar into the bowl. Continue to whip the mixture until you get a liquid but well-moldable mass. If you have food coloring, you can confidently use it.
- For further work, we need a pastry bag, which can be replaced with a regular plastic bag. Fill the bag tightly with icing and cut off its tip. The diameter of the cut should be literally 2-3 mm, so that the drawing is thin and neat. Start decorating the cookies. The simplest option for decoration is to repeat the cookie's pattern along its contour. If you have artistic talents, you can decorate the cookies even more beautifully, as confectionery welcomes imagination.
- Leave the cookies for a couple more hours for the icing to dry and not smudge. Well, that's it – honey-gingerbread cookies at home are ready!
