Our third yule calendar entry comes from Marta! She has sent us a letter with a traditional gingerbread recipe and some drawings of the tasty end result for us to drool on. Go and test the recipe! And "time-consuming" isn't a bad thing in this case – that just means ye'll have more time to taste the dough during the baking! It's proper quality assurance.
Hullo and well met!
Recently I stumbled upon your Yule calendar and right away thought it was a wonderful project I’d like to be part of (hopefully) this year! I’m sending a traditional Polish gingerbread (pierniczki) recipe straight from Hobbit Granny’s kitchen. The recipe itself is more than a hundred years old and trust me, these gingerbreads are one of the best things you’ll ever eat!
Traditionally gingerbread cookies are prepared for the 24th of December when we, Poles, have our Christmas Eve supper. They symbolize sweet life and welfare, so I believe it’s a good idea to put them on our tables this year.
Here comes the recipe
First you have to caramelise a full tablespoon of sugar in a pot or a frying pan so it becomes a brown sticky goo (well, caramel :D). If you don’t want to do it yourself (it does take some time) then you can always buy it in a shop.
Prepare a huge bowl and put 700 grams of flour in it. Add a teaspoon of baking soda and 2 eggs.
In a small pot melt 200 grams of butter, 200 grams of sugar and 400 grams of honey (if you’d like to use less sugar you can always use sweeteners or just add a bit less). At the very end add a few spoons of gingerbread spice (quantity depends on your personal preference- we usually add 1-2 tablespoons).
Once it’s all nice and melted add the mixture to the huge bowl. Don’t forget to pour in the caramel as well! Mix thoroughly and put the dough on a pastry board. Sprinkle with flour so that it doesn’t get glued to the board. Knead the dough until it becomes an even mass. Put it back in the bowl, cover with a cloth and leave in a cold place (not fridge!) for a few days. The longer the better!
It gets really easy afterwards- just take the dough out of the bowl and roll it on a board. Then use cookie cutters to shape them as you’d like to. Bake in 180°C until they turn golden brown.
And that’s it! They taste wonderfully just as they are but even better with chocolate or white icing! I know the recipe is a bit time-consuming but hello- it’s 2020 and we have to do something to make it end as quickly and pleasantly as possible :D.
Happy Yuletide fellow hobbitses!
Marta
(Image from: https://www.oetker.pl/pl-pl/nasze-przepisy/r/pierniczki-w-czekoladzie )
I love how you decorated them! I think they are foxes maybe? Very unique. I made vegan gingerbread a couple years in a row and just didn't taste like regular gingerbread. I may try this with only an egg substitute. Thank you!
ReplyDeleteI just baked some vegan & gluten-free gingerbread biscuits. They were not all too sugary, but we enjoyed them still (I baked four full baking trays of them and after one day, almost every biscuit has been eaten... by someone *looks innocent*
DeleteI might post that recipe at some point! Or maybe a vegan recipe with regular flour.
That would be grand if you posted it. I am not picky about my flour--I have a variety of types on hand, but feel a fondness for regular white enriched flour, probably from my childhood, when I baked chocolate chip cookies a lot and loved scooping and leveling the flour :-) .
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