Gingerbread - a traditional delicacy that is prepared in different countries. Fragrant, soft, sweet, they are often baked in the form of various figures and served to the holiday table. Often they are prepared for Christmas. Different nations and different regions have their own traditions of making gingerbread dough. It can be raw or custard. The dough for gingerbread make honey, honey and sugar and sugar. Gingerbread and mint cakes are popular, but they can also be flavored with citrus peel, nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves and other spices. Having learned to make dough for gingerbread, the hostess will surely win the respect of guests and members of the household.
Cooking Features
The technology of making dough for gingerbread is different from the process of kneading other types of dough. Knowing a few moments will allow the cook to better cope with the task.
- Gingerbread flour can be used from wheat or rye - the choice depends on the specific recipe. The quality of the flour should be high, as from a second-rate product, the products are unappetizing in appearance and often have an unpleasant taste.
- Flour must be sifted before kneading. This is done not only to rid it of small litter and insect larvae, but also to saturate the product with oxygen. Sifted flour becomes lighter, easier to combine with other ingredients without the formation of lumps. When baking products such dough rises well, making gingerbread more tender and crumbly.
- Sometimes the flour is fried in a dry frying pan before being mixed with other ingredients or simply heated. Add it in parts, each time stirring the dough until smooth.
- Gingerbread dough is made on honey or its mixtures with sugar. If it is cooked on sugar alone, it must be caramelized. Honey is melted before use, trying not to heat it too much to keep the maximum of useful substances in it.
- Eggs are not always added to the gingerbread dough. With them, the dough is more dense, without them softer. Soft dough a little harder to roll, but the cakes from it turn out more friable. Each version of gingerbread has its fans. Say which ones are more delicious, it is impossible.
- Gingerbread dough can be raw or custard. The first does not brew; products for it are used at room temperature. This method of making gingerbread dough is considered more simple, but gingerbread made from choux pastry does not harden much longer.
- Some chefs knead gingerbread dough for a long time. The goal is to insist on spices, which makes the products more fragrant. Knead the dough for 3 days before making gingerbread and keep this time in a cold basement or on the bottom shelf of the refrigerator.
To prepare the gingerbread dough, they roll it out, not too thinly, cut out figures from it, spread them on a baking tray covered with parchment and send it to the oven heated to 200 degrees. Bake gingerbread for 7-12 minutes depending on their size and density of the dough. More time to keep them in a preheated oven is not worth it, otherwise they will dry out and become less tasty.
Finished gingerbread can be coated with icing - then they will become even more tasty and beautiful.
Raw dough for gingerbread
Composition:
- wheat flour - 0, 45 kg;
- water - 120 ml;
- butter - 50 g;
- soda - 3 g;
- vanillin - 1, 5 g;
- sugar - 0, 3 kg.
Preparation Method:
- Pour sugar and vanillin into a small saucepan, cover with water. Over medium heat bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer the sugar mixture, stirring until the sugar is completely dissolved, and the syrup has a golden hue.
- Remove the syrup from the heat and allow it to cool to room temperature.
- Remove the butter from the refrigerator beforehand so that it becomes soft by the time the dough is made.
- Put the softened butter in the cooled syrup. Stir the products until a homogeneous composition.
- Sift flour, mix it with soda.
- In parts by adding flour to the syrup and stirring, prepare a dense dough.
It remains to roll out the dough, cut the figures out of it and bake them for 12 minutes in an oven warmed to 200 degrees.
Choux pastry on gingerbread
Composition:
- wheat flour - 0.5 kg;
- chicken egg - 2 pcs .;
- water - 100 ml;
- sugar - 150 g;
- honey - 150 ml;
- butter - 30 g;
- soda - 3 g;
- dried mint, ground cloves, ginger and cardamom - 2 g each.
Preparation Method:
- Remove the oil from the refrigerator in advance to soften it.
- Combine honey, sugar and water in a small saucepan. Heat, stirring, to about 70 degrees. Get the honey to melt and sugar to dissolve - the mixture should be homogeneous.
- Sift flour. Separate half.
- Add spices to the hot, sweet mass, without removing it from the heat, mix well with a wooden spoon.
- Add half the flour and quickly stir the fragrant mass, it should become homogeneous, without lumps of flour.
- Remove the pan from the heat. Transfer the contents to a bowl, let cool to room temperature.
- In a separate container, whisk the eggs with a whisk, add to the honey-sugar mass. Put oil there and add soda. Mix well.
- Enter the remaining flour and knead the dough.
You can give the dough a little brew by placing it in the fridge, or begin to form and bake the gingerbread at once. Prepare them for 10 minutes at a temperature of 200 degrees.
Long-ripening gingerbread dough
Composition:
- milk - 100 ml;
- chicken egg - 1 pc .;
- rye flour - 0, 35 kg;
- ghee - 60 g;
- honey - 150 ml;
- rum or cognac - 50 ml;
- soda - 5 g;
- brown sugar - 100 g;
- candied fruit - 50 g;
- nuts - 100 g;
- ground ginger and cinnamon - 3 g;
- nutmeg, cardamom, star anise, cloves - 1 g each;
- ground black pepper and allspice - on the tip of a knife.
Preparation Method:
- Sift the flour, pour it on a baking sheet, place it in the oven preheated to 180 degrees, warm it up for 10 minutes.
- Turn off the oven, but leave the flour pan for now.
- Put honey in a bowl or a small saucepan, add sugar, add oil and water. Heat the products in a water bath, stirring until they turn into a homogeneous mixture.
- Add alcohol, mix.
- Pour about a third of the flour into the hot syrup, stir quickly to brew it.
- Preheat in a dry frying pan and stir in the spices in a mortar, send them to a warm mass, mix.
- Enter chopped nuts and candied fruits, again mixing the sweet mass.
- Wait until the mass is barely warm.
- Dissolve soda with milk. Pour in to the cooled mass. Add an egg to it.
- Stir carefully.
- Add the remaining flour and knead the dough.
- Put the dough in a pot or pan, cover with a lid and remove for 3 days in a cool place.
After a specified time, you can proceed to making gingerbread. They are very fragrant. They will be especially relevant on the Christmas table.
Chocolate dough for gingerbread
Composition:
- wheat flour - 0.5 kg;
- Egg category C2 - 1 pc .;
- cocoa powder - 30 g;
- soda - 2 g;
- kefir - 120 ml;
- butter - 100 g;
- sugar - 120 g.
Preparation Method:
- Remove the food from the refrigerator one hour before the dough is prepared so that they can warm up to room temperature.
- Melt the butter and cool it.
- Pour kefir into the bowl. Add soda, mix.
- To kefir pour sugar, pour in oil. Whisk the whisk.
- Divide the egg into white and yolk. Add the yolk to the prepared liquid mixture, leave the protein for the glaze.
- Add cocoa butter mixture to the kefir-butter mixture, stir.
- Gradually pouring the sifted flour, knead the dough, which is soft but not sticky to the hands.
You need to form balls of dough and bake them in the oven. Gingerbread can be covered with glaze, having prepared it from whipped protein and 80-100 g of icing sugar.
Gingerbread dough is prepared using a special technology, but it is not complicated. The hostess, who has at least a little experience in the preparation of pastries or pastries, will cope with this without difficulty. The task will be on the shoulder and novice cook, if he will exactly follow the instructions accompanying the selected recipe.
