The tradition of baking gingerbread houses appeared in Germany in the 19th century. After the publication of the fairy tale “Hansel and Gretel” by the famous Brothers Grimm in 1812, fairy houses became incredibly popular in home cooking and Christmas markets, and the decoration of gingerbread houses turned into real art. Gingerbread houses gained particular popularity in the late Middle Ages with the invention of the gingerbread dough, which allowed confectionery products not to stale for a long time. Now the houses could stop looking at plenty, not rushing to eat them.

Gingerbread dough can be kneaded as much as you like, it will not get worse, like chopped or shortbread. But if you took up the gingerbread cookies, then remember - they are not tender and crumbly, they are slightly viscous and dense. But they can not deteriorate for quite some time and, what is important, they keep their shape very well when baking. Roll out the dough thinly - and the gingerbread cookies will dry quickly, and if you make thick printed gingerbread cookies, they will be soft inside for quite a while. If desired, gingerbread dough can be stored in the refrigerator for two weeks.

Dough

For gingerbread dough, mix 250 g of flour with spices (1.5 tsp. Ground cinnamon, 1 \\ 4 tsp. Ground nutmeg, cloves, ginger). If you want cookies of a darker color, you can add a teaspoon of cocoa.

In a separate saucepan, heat: 35 g of butter, 60 g of sugar (2 tbsp), 80 g of honey (2 tbsp), 30 g of milk (2 tbsp) until the sugar dissolves and melts a little. Cool !!!

Put 1 egg in flour, pour the syrup and knead the dough with a spoon.

Put on the table, knead and roll. Shake off excess flour.

Cut the figures with molds and transfer to a baking sheet covered with paper. If you want to make holes for ribbons, this must be done before baking, the most convenient is a tube for a cocktail.

If you have a gingerbread board, grease it with oil, fill it tightly with dough, roll it with a rolling pin and turn it over. Bake gingerbread ready 8 minutes at 200C, and printed - 12 minutes.

Glaze.

Beat 1/2 protein to a dense foam, add 50 g of powdered sugar, beat well and pour another 50 g of powdered sugar, mix. To make colored glaze, add a little juice - carrot, for orange, for beetroot, for burgundy - cherry, for green - spinach juice. Some juices are very liquid, so you can squeeze a berry or jam along with the pulp. It is important to mix the icing well until smooth so that there are no lumps.

Why are the gingerbread cookies dark?

Dark gingerbread is obtained if part of the flour (up to half) is replaced with rye flour. In addition, the color of the gingerbread can be made dark using dark honey and / or molasses and / or brown sugar. Another common way is to put more cinnamon, or even cocoa. The cheapest, but common in industrial production, option is to use burnt (an aqueous solution of burnt sugar) for tinting gingerbread cookies.

How to make gingerbread cookies soft?

There are also several ways. One of the easiest options is to put more baking powder, soda or use ammonium. Another affordable way is to replace most of the sugar with honey and / or molasses; products with them remain soft for a long time and do not grow stale. A less well-known and more complex option is to make choux pastry, in which the flour is brewed with hot honey or sugar syrup. All these methods can be combined with each other, of course, which is what was done in most recipes. You can also just put less flour (make the dough softer, like in a French mace), but then it will be difficult to cut the dough and control the shape of the products when baking. But in gingerbread cookies (ginger, for example), they often just put more butter, and the dough turns out to be kind of shortbread, brittle and tender.

To soften the gingerbread cookies, just put them in a closed plastic container with a slice of apple or gingerbread

How to choose spices?

Only for your taste! In general, gingerbread cookies do not have to be spicy; you can make chocolate, mint or, for example, almond gingerbread cookies. The number and type of spices depends on who will eat your gingerbread cookies. Cinnamon with a small addition of nutmeg and cloves is good for children. For adults, ground ginger and pepper will add some pungency.

How to make gingerbread cookies shine?

The simplest thing is to grease them with yolk before baking. And the last: how to avoid mistakes in this recipe? Most often they forget to cool the honey syrup, the flour is brewed and the dough is too dense. Remember that syrup should be at room temperature. To prevent the gingerbread cookies from being burnt, watch them carefully - on a dark test, the frying is less noticeable, and you can miss the point.

Gingerbread houses

Preparations for gingerbread houses need to be cut before baking, then bake and fasten either with boiled condensed milk (the option is simpler):

or icing (recipe see above). In order for the glaze to hold the walls and the roof of the house together, you need to apply it to the edges and wait 10 minutes, then press it tightly.

Take care of the finishing material: sugar glaze of all colors of the rainbow and fudge, different types of marmalades and chocolates, protein cream and marzipan, confectionery mastic and color ice cream, candied, candied, dried or dried fruits, berries, honey, jam, etc.

To make candy windows in the house, crumble the candy into crumbs, and when the gingerbread is ready, pour crumbs of candy into the hole in the windows and put in the oven for several minutes until melted.

You can insert a small flashlight into the finished house, then it will glow with a completely fabulous light! And do not forget the main thing - you can build gingerbread houses only in a good mood! :))

What can be done, prepared from dried cakes?

You can make a cake from old gingerbread. To do this, break the spice by any means, for example, put it in a bag, then wrap it in any material and knock with a hammer.

Then pour everything with condensed milk diluted with milk or pour sour cream (sour cream with sugar). All in all proportions, by eye. Let stand, soak.

Line the mold with cling film or tracing paper, pour out the mass and refrigerate for several hours.

You can cook something like a potato cake. For this we need about 700 grams of gingerbread, a can of boiled condensed milk, 180-200 grams of butter (pack), an incomplete glass of sugar, a tablespoon of cocoa. Let's start cooking with the fact that the gingerbread need to be crushed in a blender, in a meat grinder or a crush. Then add butter and condensed milk to them, mix well, form balls and roll in cocoa with sugar. Put in the refrigerator for 6 hours to freeze.

You can also have another version of the cake. In the crushed gingerbread by eye add milk, honey, nuts, condensed milk. Knead, roll balls and also in the refrigerator for solidification.

Their dried gingerbread can make chocolate sausage. For this berm:

1) 0.5 kg of gingerbread;

2) condensed milk 200 gr;

3) butter 200 gr;

4) cocoa 1 tablespoon.

We crush gingerbread cookies in this way: put them in a tight bag and tap them well with a hammer. The softened butter is mixed with condensed milk and cocoa. We mix all the ingredients, form a sausage, lay on cellophane, wrap and put the luggage in the refrigerator for a couple of hours. Sun is ready!

You can try to make such a cupcake: soak the gingerbread in milk or kefir, put in the refrigerator for several hours, add two eggs, then choose raisins, chopped dates, prunes, dried apricots (any dried fruits), a little flour (so that the dough takes shape) , baking powder, bake in the oven for 30-40 minutes.

And you gently moisten these gingerbread with milk or water, put in a baking bag and put in the oven for a small light or in the microwave. Gingerbread cookies will become soft and almost fresh, as if just baked. I’m always resuscitating so dried bread - I put it directly in the factory packaging into the oven.

If not very dry, then dry and grind. Then you will sprinkle home-made cakes on them, and not only.

I say so, because I really saw that they do this at food enterprises. More precisely, they make crumbs (I don’t remember exactly what it was called) from old cookies, gingerbread cookies ...

Gingerbread Cake

Gingerbread cookies, can be stale 300g.

Butter 1/4 pack

Black currant (jam possible) 100g.

Curd 1 pack

Egg 1 pc.

Sugar 9 teaspoons

We take gingerbread cookies (can be stale), grind it into flour, mix with softened butter (as if knead the dough). We spread the form with this test, put the currant on top, on it - cottage cheese mixed with yolk. Beat sugar with protein in a steep foam, pour everything on top. We put in the oven not for long until the protein with sugar is browned.

They can be crushed for some sweet dishes: pies, cakes, muffins. And you can crush dried gingerbread in semolina on a grater. There it softens a little and as a result it will turn out quite interesting, if you add jam.

But this is not for everybody!

You can make cakes. It will take 300g. gingerbread cookies, 50g butter, 50g. condensed milk, 1-2 tbsp. cognac, coconut flakes.

It is necessary to combine condensed milk and softened butter, add dried gingerbread, grated, and cognac to them. Mix everything well, the mass should, in consistency, resemble a cool dough. Form potato cakes, roll them in any coconut or cocoa powder and put in the refrigerator for three hours.

If the gingerbread cookies are not only dried up but also covered with mold, then it remains only to throw or crush the birds.

If the fungus has not visited forgotten sweets, then a blender will help.

In the ground mass, add condensed milk and mix well, add cocoa, you can sprinkle with powdered sugar and in the refrigerator for a couple of hours.

Gingerbread Cake
  Gingerbread cookies, can be stale 300g.
   Butter 1/4 pack
   Black currant (jam possible) 100g.
   Curd 1 pack
   Egg 1 pc.
   Sugar 9 teaspoons
  We take gingerbread cookies (can be stale), grind it into flour, mix with softened butter (as if knead the dough). We spread the form with this test, put the currant on top, on it - cottage cheese mixed with yolk. Beat sugar with protein in a steep foam, pour everything on top. We put in the oven not for long until the protein with sugar is browned.

1.
  The stale gingerbread can be refreshed, made soft again. To do this, put them in a colander, pour hot water into a pan and put a colander in a pan (steam bath). Turn on the gas and wait 15 minutes after boiling water. Gingerbread cookies should lie in one layer, and the colander should not touch water. Bon Appetit!

2.
  gingerbread cake
  The recipe for the disposal of dried gingerbread.
  It turns out a great pie. Very soft and delicate. The truth is quite sweet. But the sour filling "takes away" excessive sweetness.
  I really like the filling of dried apricots. This time I added dates to it, and for acid - lemon.
  As a filling, you can take thick jam or boiled condensed milk.

DOUGH
  400 g of gingerbread, 150 g of butter, 1/2 teaspoon of soda, 2 eggs, 1 tablespoon of lemon juice
  FILLING
  1 lemon, ~ 300g of any dried fruits (raisins, prunes, dried apricots, figs, dates), nuts, if desired
  Grate the zest of the lemon and squeeze the juice.
  Set aside 1 tablespoon of juice.
  Scroll dried fruits through a meat grinder (if dried fruits are too dry, pour boiling water over them for 15 ~ 20 minutes).
  Mix the resulting mass with lemon juice and zest.
  Stale gingerbread pass through a meat grinder and stir in soda.
  Grind the resulting gingerbread flour with butter at room temperature.
Add 2 eggs and a set spoon of lemon juice. It should be soft, slightly sticky, but not fluid, dough.
  Put half of the dough in a greased form and flatten.
  Put a layer of filling on the dough.
  Cover the filling on top with a second layer of dough.
  Put the cake in an oven preheated to t \u003d 200 ° С until browning (15 ~ 20 min).
  Remove the finished cake from the oven and cool without removing from the mold.
  Before serving, cut into pieces.

3.
  Cake OLD NEW YEAR.
  200 g of butter, 4 eggs, 300 g of gingerbread, 1 glass of nuts, better than walnuts, 0.5 glass of sugar, 0.5 glass of milk, soda.
  Beat the butter with sugar, add the gingerbread cookies passed through the meat grinder, milk, crushed nuts, a pinch of soda. Beat the whites with 2 tablespoons of sugar and mix with the bulk. Gently knead until smooth. Put in a greased form and bake in moderate heat. Cool, cut into 2-3 layers. Sprinkle each layer with acidic juice (grape, apple). Lubricate with cream, preferably chocolate (condensed milk, cocoa, drain butter), trim the edges, grind. Top with cream or pour over chocolate, sprinkle with crumbs or nuts, all at your discretion. Smear instead of cream can be sour jam. It turns out a good cake

Gingerbread cookies are very dense in composition, so they can be stored for more than one week, but several months. Honey and ginger, which are part of the test-natural preservatives, protect the product from spoilage. And how to soften gingerbread cookies you will learn from this article.

Gingerbread from honey and ginger are not soft. Compared to other gingerbread cookies, these are slightly stiffer in structure: this is a feature of the dough preparation formula. It must be elastic so that when baking, the figures do not blur. Gingerbread can be softened by adding more honey to the dough.

If you are interested in how to soften the stale gingerbread cookies, use these tips.

First way

In a box or bag with gingerbread cookies you need to put a few slices or half an apple, leave it all for several hours, you can at night. Apples need to be washed, cut into slices, and put them between the gingerbread cookies. If the gingerbread cookies in a plate or basket, then you can wrap the dish with cling film, if the product is in a pan, then just cover it. After this procedure, the gingerbread cookies are soft and fragrant, have a pleasant apple smell.

Second way

You can refresh the gingerbread in this way: put a sliced \u200b\u200bbanana between them. Also pack the container with the treat and leave it overnight. From the gingerbread will come a pleasant aroma of banana.

Third way

If you want to make cookies as if just baked, then you need to take a few crusts of bread and slices of orange. Leave them between the cookies overnight, while covering with a towel or film.

To keep the products soft for as long as possible, they can be cleaned in the kitchen cabinet, covered with a cloth, but not near the heating appliances.

Most often, this confectionery is stored as a souvenir. But it also happens that the aroma is so attractive and you want to eat it as quickly as possible. And yet, if a souvenir wants to taste, it can be resuscitated by the above methods.

This sweetness is specially packaged in paper or box, so that they can remain fresh for a very long time. Recently, it has become relevant to give such products in the form of a souvenir. The gift is original, suitable for any age and it does not matter, a man or a woman will have such a souvenir.