Ginger cookies with fresh ginger: recipes, benefits, decoration

Gingerbread cookies in the form of New Year's figures are a symbol of Christmas in Europe, like a Christmas tree, a Christmas cupcake and Santa Claus. It is customary for the whole family to bake ginger cookies - this charming tradition, which has come to us from time immemorial, brings relatives together and turns Christmas and New Year into the brightest, most comfortable and delicious holidays. I would like to thank an unknown monk who lived in the 11th century, because it was thanks to his absent-mindedness that the classic recipe for ginger cookies appeared. While preparing for the monastery's Christmas meal, the monk confused ground ginger with flour, but everyone in the monastery liked the baked goods so much that the recipe spread to other monasteries. Now homemade ginger cookies have turned into a magnificent culinary handmade that decorates the festive table for Christmas or New Year. Ginger cookies in the shape of deer, snowflakes, Christmas trees and houses, painted with sugar icing, are a very tasty and heartwarming gift that always evokes joy and warm feelings.

DIY gingerbread cookies for the New Year

The German city of Nuremberg is called the ginger capital of Europe, so many people specifically go there for the best ginger cookies in the world.

To prepare the dough, first mix dry products - flour, soda and spices, and separately grind soft butter with sugar, eggs and honey. After this, the ingredients are combined together and the dough is kneaded until the crumbs stick together into a dense, uniform ball. Properly prepared dough usually does not stick to your hands and has a texture similar to marzipan. The finished dough is wrapped in cling film and placed in the refrigerator for 30 minutes. This is necessary so that the butter hardens, because it is easier to cut out figures from a denser dough using gingerbread cookie cutters.

Next, part of the dough is rolled out with a rolling pin on the table, figures are cut out of it, placed on a greased baking sheet at a short distance from each other and baked for 5-15 minutes at a temperature of 180 ° C - the baking time depends on the thickness of the cookies. By the way, the other part of the dough is in the refrigerator at this time, otherwise it will begin to melt. For the same reason, the figures need to be cut out as quickly as possible so that their contours are not blurred. By the time the baking sheet is filled with cookies, the oven should already be preheated. When the cookies have darkened a little around the edges, they are considered ready, but if they are kept in the oven, they will become hard. Properly prepared gingerbread cookies start out soft and then become crispy.

Baking Recipes with Ginger

Making confectionery at home with the addition of ginger is very simple. There are various recipes for making pies, muffins, cookies and even cakes with this healthy ingredient. Below are the most popular and interesting in terms of taste and visual design.

Gingerbread cookies are a classic among Christmas desserts.

Christmas ginger cookies have truly been a classic of the genre for over 5 centuries. In Germany, there were even special gingerbread fairs where you could buy painted gingerbread houses, gingerbread cookies, cupcakes and cookies. The uniqueness of gingerbread cookie recipes lies in their simplicity. Even the most inept housewife will be able to please her family with a fragrant product, and if she applies a little imagination and patience, then with a real holiday masterpiece.

To prepare the dough you need:

Ginger Cake Recipe

grate 100 g of fresh root on a fine grater;
soften 180 g of butter, chop with a knife and combine with ginger paste;
beat 150 g of sugar and 2 eggs separately, add to the butter mixture, mix;
melt 4 tbsp in a water bath. l. honey and combine with ingredients in a common bowl;
sift 400 g flour and 1 tsp. baking powder, combine with the previous ingredients, knead into a thick dough;
put in the refrigerator for 3 hours.

After the dough becomes dense and convenient to work with, small balls the size of a quail egg are rolled out of it. Each ball is rolled in sugar, placed on a baking sheet lined with parchment and pressed down with the palm of your hand. This produces a round liver with sugar sprinkles up to 5-7 mm high. The cookies are cooked at 180°C for 15 minutes, then allowed to cool directly in the oven.

If the housewife has a lot of free time and there is no limit to her imagination, the procedure of dipping the dough in sugar should be skipped. It can be decorated with original painting using sugar icing. You need to paint completely cooled cookies. Some do this on the second day after preparation. The glaze is made from chicken proteins, powdered sugar and lemon juice. You can add food coloring if desired. A pastry syringe is used as a painting tool.

Ginger pie with apples

Making regular apple charlotte is the most popular autumn homemade baking recipe. But you can diversify it by preparing a fragrant apple-ginger pie. Cooking technology:

Sift 280 g of wheat flour and combine it with 4 g of soda and 90 g of butter, which has previously been softened and chopped with a knife.
Beat 2 eggs with a pinch of salt and 4 tbsp. l. Sahara.
Combine the ingredients in a common bowl, add 40 g of grated ginger, squeeze out the juice of 1 lemon and add 1 tsp. honey, mix thoroughly.
Line the mold with parchment, pour out half of the dough, cut 3-4 apples into 2 mm slices, pour out the remaining half of the dough.

Prepare the pie for about 1 hour at 180 degrees. Powdered sugar is used as decoration. In this recipe, the lemon-ginger note is clearly felt, which, combined with the apple aroma, gives a unique result.

Ginger roll

It is very easy to prepare in 30 minutes from an available set of ingredients.

Separate the whites from the yolks of 2 eggs, put the whites in the refrigerator to cool.
In a separate container, using a mixer, beat 2 yolks, 2 whole eggs and 90 g of sugar. The mass should look like white thick foam.
Add 15 g corn starch, 2 tsp. lime or lemon zest, 60 g flour and beat again with a mixer.
Add 1 tsp. powdered ginger, stir with a spoon.
Beat the chilled whites with a pinch of salt and 20 g of powdered sugar and add to the egg mixture.
The resulting semi-thick dough is placed in a rectangular shape, which must be covered with parchment, and baked for 15 minutes at 180 °C.

After the dough is ready, let it rest for 5 minutes and place it on a towel or silicone mat, and then make a roll. You can use sweet cottage cheese with berries as a cream for the roll. It turns out delicious if you mix condensed milk with soft cheese. Lubricate the completely cold and untwisted cake with cream. The top can be decorated with melted chocolate.

Ginger balls

You can prepare a delicious ginger dessert without baking. These are balls for which you just need to grind the necessary ingredients in a blender. This is cinnamon and ginger powder, 1 tsp each, which are combined with 1 tsp. olive oil and the juice of half a lemon. Separately, grind 100 g of almonds with a pinch of salt and 20 g of honey in a blender.

Only the dates are thinly sliced separately with a knife. Mix everything and form small balls. They are rolled over a dish with coconut flakes and placed in the freezer for 30-40 minutes. A tasty and low-calorie dish is ready for tea.

Ginger does not always play the role of the main violin in baking. Most often it acts as a highlight, which even gourmets do not always reveal. Adding spice to food is not only possible, but also necessary. After all, it improves digestion, which means it does not burden the stomach and does not contribute to the formation of waste and toxins in the intestines. And the aroma of spiced cookies that wafts through the house on Christmas Eve cannot be compared with any other noble smell.

How to decorate gingerbread cookies

A classic decoration is gingerbread cookie frosting, which can be made from 1 egg white, cup powdered sugar, 2 tbsp. l. water and 1 tbsp. l. lemon or orange juice. Beat all ingredients in a mixer or blender until the glaze thickens. You can add more powdered sugar if the mixture is too runny. The thicker the icing, the easier it is to draw patterns on the cookies.

You can make glaze without protein. In this case, for 150 g of powdered sugar, take 1 tbsp. l. water and 1 tsp. citrus juice. Grind the mixture until smooth. When the sugar drop does not spread, but remains in a ball on the saucer, the glaze is considered ready.

The custard glaze is also very tasty. To prepare it, boil 50 ml of water in a saucepan, then reduce the heat and gradually add 300 g of powdered sugar. Stirring the mixture constantly, pour 1 tsp into it. lemon juice and cook for 5 minutes.

You can add food coloring to the glaze, and to apply designs, use a pastry bag or plastic bag with a corner cut off. You just have to draw on the cookies very quickly, because the icing hardens instantly. You can find examples of patterns in photos of gingerbread cookies with icing posted online, or come up with your own version.

Gingerbread cookies decorated with glaze should sit for 10 hours until the glaze completely dries. Now you can wrap Christmas gifts without worrying about the cookies sticking together. And if you poke holes in the cookies with a cocktail straw before they go in the oven, you can hang the treat on the tree or make a spectacular and delicious garland. New Year is the best time for culinary creativity!

Video recipe for making delicious ginger cookies

If you want to get acquainted with the recipe for making gingerbread cookies using a live example, I recommend watching this video. The author just prepared very tasty and spicy cookies.

Enjoy watching!

Ginger cookies are prepared most often on cold winter evenings. They warm you with their aroma and taste. But our family loves them so much that we cook them all year round!

You can find out a few more recipes for different types of cookies HERE

I wish you success! See you soon!

Author of the publication

offline for 2 months

Ginger cookies: recipe step by step

To make these delicious cookies using a classic European recipe, you will need the following ingredients.

Ingredients: for the dough: flour - 250 g, butter at room temperature - 70 g, brown sugar - 80 g, egg - 1 pc., cocoa powder - 1 tbsp. l., ground ginger - 1 tsp., fresh grated ginger - 1 tsp., ground cinnamon - 1 tsp., ground cloves - 0.5 tsp., soda - 0.5 tsp. .; for glaze: powdered sugar - 250 g, white of a large egg - 1 pc. (about 40 g), warm water - 2-3 tbsp. l., lemon juice - 1 tbsp. l., food coloring of any shades, edible beads and snowflakes - to taste.

Cooking method:

1. Chop the butter into cubes.

2. Mix butter with sugar and eggs, beat with a mixer for 3 minutes.

3. Add soda, cocoa, spices, ginger and flour to the mixture.

4. Using a mixer, knead the dough.

5. Wrap the dough in cling film and place it in the refrigerator.

6. Roll out half of the dough with a rolling pin on the table, and leave the other half in the refrigerator. The result should be a layer 7 mm thick.

7. Turn on the oven and preheat it to 180°C, cover a baking sheet with baking paper.

8. Cut out shapes with molds and place them on a baking sheet.

9. Bake cookies for 10 minutes.

10. Do the same with the second batch of dough.

11. Mix all the ingredients for the glaze.

12. Beat the mixture with a mixer for 10 minutes. To check readiness, run a knife across the surface of the glaze. If the mark remains for at least 10 seconds, then you can paint with this glaze.

13. Place the glaze in a pastry bag and draw any designs on the cooled cookies.

14. Decorate the frosting with brightly colored food beads, snowflakes or colored sprinkles.

15. Let the cookies stand for 4 hours and serve.

Fragrant gingerbread cookies, smelling of cinnamon, will cheer you up on cold winter evenings, because you don’t have to bake them exclusively for Christmas!

New Year's cookies

Santa's Staff Cookies

These original cookies are not at all difficult to prepare, but their appearance will make the most boring table sparkle in a New Year's way!

Ingredients:

170 gr. wheat flour;
110 gr. butter;
100 gr. granulated sugar;
1 egg yolk;
a pinch of salt;
0.5 tsp baking powder;
food coloring.

Melting snowmen

Edible snowmen will delight guests of all ages. And by the way, preparing them is not at all difficult.

Ingredients:

for test:

35 gr. butter;
40 ml. milk;
50 gr. Sahara;
75 gr. flour;
75 gr. potato starch;
1 pinch of vanillin;
0.5 tsp baking powder.

for glaze:

1/2 egg white;
80 grams of powdered sugar.

For decoration:

marshmallow;
food gel colors (blue, black and orange).

See also: Homemade cookies with cottage cheese

Step-by-step preparation:

Preparing the dough:

Step 1. Sift flour with potato starch and baking powder.

Step 2. Beat the softened butter well with a whisk with sugar and vanilla.

Step 3. Mix 1/2 mixture of flour with starch and baking powder with whipped butter.

Step 4. Pour in the milk and mix well again.

Step 5. Knead the dough by adding the rest of the dry ingredient mixture. Let the dough rest for a while.

Step 6. Roll out the finished dough directly on the parchment, covering them with a second sheet. (You will bake directly on them, do not try to move the pieces from the paper). The thickness should be about 0.5 cm.

Step 7. Use a round cutter (or glass) to cut out the blanks.

Step 8: Use the extra dough to make cookies too.

Step 9. Heat the oven to 180 C. Bake the rounds in it for 10-12 minutes. (The cookies won't brown, don't wait).

Preparing the glaze:

Be sure to beat the whites cold, without a drop of yolk, with powdered sugar until light and dazzlingly white. The glaze should be thick.

Making snowmen:

Step 1. Glue the marshmallow to the cookie - 1 tsp. Pour glaze into the center of the cookie and place one marshmallow. Wait for the glaze to dry.

Step 2. Then draw the carrot, eyes and other attributes of the snowman with dyes.

Cookies "Mushrooms"

Carefully! Don't confuse it with pickles! These mushrooms look just like real ones, just right for the holiday table.

Ingredients:

For decoration:

poppy;
0.5 cups sugar;
3 tbsp. water;
1 tsp cocoa.

for test:

2 cups sugar;
1 large egg;
200 gr. butter;
200 gr. fat sour cream;
a pinch of salt;
2 tsp baking powder;
5 glasses of flour.

See also: Quick and tasty Lenten cookies with starch and vegetable oil

Step-by-step preparation:

Step 1. Mash the egg with sugar (it’s easier to do this with a spoon) until white foam (or just beat with a mixer). Add soft butter, sour cream and salt. Mix everything thoroughly with a mixer.

Step 2. While continuing to knead, gradually sift the flour and baking powder into the mixture. As the dough thickens, it will be easier to knead with your hands.

Step 3. Divide the dough into two parts - one will make the legs, and the other will go to the caps. Roll out the part that will go on the legs into a long sausage, and then cut into pieces about 2 cm long and cut once lengthwise.

Step 4. From the second part, roll so many balls so that there are enough caps for all the mushrooms. Flatten each ball on one side and make a small indentation there for the leg. Insert a piece of parchment into this recess, then it will not lose its shape in the oven.

Step 5. Bake the caps and stems separately, placing them on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper, for 25 minutes. The oven temperature should be approximately 170 C.

Step 6. Cool the workpieces on a flat surface.

Prepare syrup and glaze:

Step 1. Boil half a glass of sugar with 3 tbsp. water and boil until syrup is obtained.

Step 2. For the glaze, add cocoa to 3/4 syrup and boil, stirring constantly, for 1-2 minutes.

Collecting mushrooms:

Step 1: Brush the matching mushroom stem halves with hot syrup and glue them together.

Step 2. Dip the finished legs on one side in syrup and roll in poppy seeds.

Step 3. Pour some syrup into the indentations in the caps and press the stems into them well. Let the mushrooms dry with their stems facing up.

Step 4: Holding the mushrooms by the stems, dip the caps into the glaze, allow the excess to drip off, and leave the cookies to dry.

New Year's cookies "Drifts"

Sprinkled with powdered sugar like snow, these cookies will be the highlight of New Year's dinner. Crispy, with the most delicate cream, it will conquer the most picky guest.

Ingredients:

for test:

100 gr. butter;
2 egg yolks;
70 gr. low-fat sour cream or kefir;
salt - to taste;
1 cup flour;
1 gr. vanillin;
powdered sugar for sprinkling.

for cream:

2 egg whites;
salt;
vanillin;
120 gr. Sahara.

Step-by-step preparation:

Preparing the cream:

Step 1. To make a protein cream, the whites must be chilled. Whisk them together with a pinch of salt.

Step 2. Continuing to beat, gradually add sugar and, for flavor, vanillin. Achieve a dense and fluffy consistency.

Preparing the dough:

Step 1. What has hardened in the refrigerator must be grated. Mix salt, flour and vanillin and then add to the butter.

Step 2. Combine the yolks remaining from the eggs with sour cream and mix everything with a mixture of butter and flour. Knead the dough, wrap it so it doesn't dry out, and put it in the refrigerator for 20 minutes.

Step 3. Divide the rested dough into 12 balls.

Step 4. Make round cakes out of these balls.

Step 5. Place a little cream in the center of each scone and fold it in half twice.

Step 6. These cookies should be baked on a hot baking sheet for about 20 minutes at 180 C.

Step 7. When the “Snowdrifts” are baked, sprinkle them with “snow” - powdered sugar.

New Year's cookies with sour cream

If you like it softer, then you will need this recipe, which makes the cookies softer and richer.

Ingredients:

wheat flour – 600 gr.
butter – 100 gr.
sour cream – 300 gr.
vanillin to taste
honey - 2 tbsp. l.

Melt the butter, add honey and sugar, stir the vanilla until smooth and add sour cream.

Pour the flour into the butter-sour cream mixture and knead the dough.

Then roll out the dough to a thickness of 0.5 cm and cut out cookies using cutters.

Line a baking sheet with baking paper, place the cookies on the baking sheet at a distance from each other. Bake in an oven preheated to 180°C for 10-12 minutes.

Decorate cookies with icing or decor.

Secrets for making gingerbread cookies

In the process of kneading the dough, sometimes not everything goes according to plan, since ginger dough is very capricious, often crumbles and spreads. But you can safely make your own adjustments. If the crumbs don't come together into a ball, add a little butter; If the dough is too sticky to your hands, stir in a little flour.

You need to learn to feel the dough, despite the fact that the recipe for gingerbread cookies with the photo gives completely different proportions, because the consistency of the dough also depends on the quality of the products.

In pictures in magazines, gingerbread cookies have a beautiful coffee-and-cream hue. To get this color, you need to add a little dark syrup, molasses, burnt sugar or cocoa to the dough. The simplest and most affordable option is cocoa, with which the cookies will acquire a delicious chocolate taste.

The sticky dough can be placed between two sheets of baking paper sprinkled with flour and rolled out to the desired thickness - this way you won’t have to mix excess flour into the dough, the layers won’t stick to the table and will turn out even.

If you want the cookies to be softer and more crumbly, bake them on a greased baking sheet; If you want crispy cookies, use baking paper lightly dusted with flour.

As you decorate, the icing may set in the piping bag. In this case, you need to put it in a cup, dilute it with a small amount of water and grind it well. When preparing the glaze, water is always added drop by drop to achieve the correct consistency.

How to bake New Year's gingerbread cookies with icing

Sift the flour into a deep cup, add soda and ground spices there.

Mix flour and spices well.

In another cup, stir the softened butter and granulated sugar, beat them with a mixer until fluffy. When the butter and sugar lighten, add 1 egg and continue beating. Add slightly warmed honey to the egg-butter mixture. I had sinful honey, that’s why it’s so dark.

Mix everything well, and then first add half the flour with spices, mix with a whisk. Then add the remaining flour and knead the dough with a spatula.

You need to leave a little flour to dust the surface on which you will continue to knead the dough.

If the dough is too soft and sticks to your hands, you can add more flour. In total you will need from 250 to 300 grams of flour.

Form the dough into a ball (it is still soft), transfer it to a cup, cover with cling film and put it in the refrigerator for a couple of hours, ideally overnight. After refrigeration, the dough will be firmer and easier to roll out.

Place parchment on the surface and roll out the dough on it to a thickness of 3-4 mm. To ensure the dough rolls out well, place another sheet of parchment on top.

To ensure that the thickness of the dough is the same throughout the entire layer, place, for example, rulers or similar thin strips wrapped in parchment next to the dough on both sides, cover the dough with another layer of parchment on top and roll out the dough like this.

Cut out shapes on the rolled out dough.

Using a spatula or wide knife, carefully transfer the figures to a baking tray lined with baking paper. Place the figures at a short distance from each other, as they will increase in size during baking.

We collect the excess dough into one lump and put it back in the refrigerator so that it cools a little: soft dough is more difficult to roll out.

Place the baking sheet with the preparations in an oven preheated to 180ºC for 5-7 minutes, until a golden crust forms.

If after baking you notice that the cookies are not even, place a cutting board on them while they are still warm and press lightly.

Place the finished treat on a flat surface to cool.

Recipe for ginger cookies from Yulia Vysotskaya

Shortbread ginger cookies according to Yulia Vysotskaya’s recipe are tender and crumbly. To prepare it, you will need 125 g of pre-softened butter, which must be combined with 50 g of powdered sugar, ¼ tsp. grated ginger and the zest of one orange. Mix all the ingredients well, sift 200 g of flour into the resulting mass in small portions and add 0.5 tsp. sea salt. Knead the dough, roll it out and use molds to make beautiful cookies. Bake it for 10 minutes at 180°C on a baking sheet lined with baking paper, and then decorate. However, the cookies are incredibly delicious even without fondant and icing.

Yulia Vysotskaya also has other interesting recipes - gingerbread made with maple syrup and cream, and crispy gingerbread cookies with spices.

Gingerbread cookies can be different, and it doesn’t matter which recipe you prefer. With the aromas of baking, everything in the house is transformed, and we become closer to the New Year's magic and... to ourselves.