German honey gingerbread
Description
Homemade baked goods for tea. If you don't have invert syrup, substitute it with artificial honey, but do not use real honey! This amount of dough will make 10 fairly large gingerbread cookies, 15x8 cm in size and about 5 mm thick. Brown sugar gives a special caramel flavor—children will be delighted. Store the gingerbread cookies in paper bags. The baking is ready. Serve at the table.
Instructions
- 1
Step 1
1. In a heavy-bottomed saucepan, heat the invert syrup until it becomes hot.
- 2
Step 2
2. Sift the flour, then add ground ginger (2 pinches), the same amount of ground cloves, half a teaspoon of ground anise, the same amount of ground cinnamon, and white sugar. Mix everything thoroughly with a spoon; you can even sift it once more through a sieve.
- 3
Step 3
3. Pour the flour into the heated syrup and begin mixing with a spoon until smooth.
- 4
Step 4
4. Dissolve the baking soda in warm milk and add it to the dough. Mix thoroughly with a spoon until it resembles choux pastry. Cover the pot with a lid and let the dough stand for at least 2 days!
- 5
Step 5
5. When the dough has rested, it will become firm. Remove the dough from the pot, sprinkle some of the brown sugar over the dough and some on the work surface. Knead the dough by hand until it absorbs all the sugar.
- 6
Step 6
6. Divide the resulting dough into 4 parts and knead each part separately once again to evenly distribute the sugar.
- 7
Step 7
7. Pour boiling water over 2-3 tablespoons of sugar and dissolve it. Use this sugar syrup to grease the dough and the rolling pin, making it easier to roll out. Roll the dough on parchment paper until it reaches a thickness of 5-8 mm.
- 8
Step 8
8. Traditionally, German gingerbread is baked in a rectangular shape; I cut mine to 8*15 cm, and the leftover dough was set aside for the next batch. Gingerbread is most commonly decorated with almond flakes.
- 9
Step 9
9. Transfer the cut-out gingerbread onto a baking sheet together with the parchment paper on which you rolled out the dough. Preheat the oven to 170 degrees. Bake the gingerbread for a very short time—5–7 minutes—be careful not to overbake. Once you remove the baking sheet from the oven, transfer the gingerbread with the parchment paper onto a wire rack and let them cool completely.
- 10
Step 10
10. After the gingerbread has rested for about 2 hours, you can confidently enjoy them :)