gingerbread cookies

by Pia Westermann
15. December 2021
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Gin­ger­bread is THE abso­lut Christ­mas clas­sic. The spices warm from the inside, its scent makes the apart­ment more cozy. And the sweet­ness can lift the mood in the dark sea­son. Gin­ger­bread is known and loved not only in Europe, but all over the world.

If you look into the his­to­ry of gin­ger­bread and its var­i­ous recipes, you will real­ize that there is not just one gin­ger­bread. The Greeks and the Romans knew sim­i­lar recipes, in monas­ter­ies the gin­ger­bread was con­sumed as food dur­ing fast­ing peri­ods. Due to the var­i­ous spices, it was con­sid­ered healthy and diges­tive. The first writ­ten men­tion of spicy hon­ey cake dates back to 350 BC. In Europe, the gin­ger­bread formed of course at trade hubs, where there was the abil­i­ty to get the desired spices (car­damom, nut­meg, cloves, all­spice, pep­per, cin­na­mon, etc.).

The clas­sic Nurem­berg gin­ger­bread, became famous in the USA through Ger­man set­tlers. They have a rather soft con­sis­ten­cy and are baked on oblates. The gin­ger­bread ver­sion I’m show­ing you here is more of a Scan­di­na­vian type of gin­ger­bread. It is more firm and more thin and reminds more of cook­ies than of pat­ties or cakes.

Instead of hon­ey, I use sug­ar trea­cle. If you can´t get it, use molasses. Even though there are still bee­keep­ers region­al­ly, I try to avoid hon­ey in larg­er quan­ti­ties. Hon­est­ly, I have hard­ly seen a bee this sum­mer (2021). Only wasps or bum­ble­bees. The death of bees is well known, but the rea­son is cer­tain­ly not that we con­sume their hon­ey, but pes­ti­cide expo­sure and mono­cul­tures. Last spring and sum­mer, there was also the pro­longed cold and heavy rain, so that the bees hard­ly had a chance.

I there­fore think the bees should keep their hon­ey to strength­en them­selves. So the sub­sti­tute sug­ar offered to them by bee­keep­ers is what I use here for my pas­tries. Black trea­cle is a region­al prod­uct and is not trans­port­ed far like maple syrup or cane sug­ar (in live in Ger­many) . In addi­tion, it is less sweet than hon­ey, but has a high min­er­al den­si­ty ( iron, kali­um, mag­ne­sium, folic acid, for example).

sug­ar trea­cle I cook­ies I spices & cocoa 

The dough is quick to make, you just need a few more ingre­di­ents for the flour mix­ture as is so often the case with gluten-free bak­ing. Every­thing is knead­ed togeth­er into a smooth dough and refrig­er­at­ed overnight. The dough is easy to roll out. If it sticks, just add some rice flour to the work sur­face and to the rolling pin. If the dough has become too warm and ten­der, put it out­side in the cold or in the refrig­er­a­tor for a while. About 15 min­utes is enough so that the dough is easy to cut and handle.

If you use fil­i­gree cut­ters and want the shape to remain as intact as pos­si­ble dur­ing bak­ing, chill the bak­ing tray with the cut out dough for anoth­er 10 to 15 min­utes. The dough will then spread less in the oven. Speak­ing of cook­ie cut­ters: Many peo­ple have asked me where I got the stamp for the gin­ger­bread faces. I can rec­om­mend etsy. There is a large selec­tion of dif­fer­ent cook­ie cutters.

But I also like to bake cook­ies com­plete­ly with­out ready-made cook­ie cut­ters. Like in the video above. Cut your own tem­plates, take tools (for exam­ple forks or beau­ti­ful glass bot­toms) from your kitchen to stamp the dough. Or cut the dough com­plete­ly freestyle, sim­ply with a knife.

I wish you a lot of fun and beau­ti­ful ideas for bak­ing. Feel free to write in the com­ments what you bake out of gin­ger­bread dough.

                                                                                                                            Jingle by talented Philipp Westermann

gingerbread cookies

gluten­free & vegan
Prep Time30 mins
Cook Time30 mins
cool­ing time8 hrs
Total Time9 hrs
Course: bak­ery, bak­ing, cook­ies, Kuchen
Key­word: gluten­free
Serv­ings: 30 cook­ies

Equipment

  • cook­ie cutters

Ingredients

flour mix

  • 150 g food starch gluten free
  • 100 g rice flour whole­meal
  • 100 g almonds, fine­ly ground
  • 1/2 tsp xan­than gum
  • 1/4 tsp bak­ing soda
  • 1 pinch of salt

other ingredients

  • 10 g gin­ger­bread spices pow­der ( cin­na­mon, corian­der, anise, gin­ger, mace, cloves)
  • 10 g cocoa pow­der unswee­t­end
  • 100 g brown sug­ar
  • 90 g molasses
  • 140 g veg­an mar­garine (try to get soy and pal­moil free)

Instructions

  • In a bowl, mix all ingre­di­ents for the flour mix­ture. Mix in gin­ger­bread spice and cocoa. Add remain­ing ingre­di­ents and knead even­ly with the whisks of a hand mix­er, first to fine crumbs, then with your hands briefly to a smooth dough. Place in a fresh-keep­ing box and seal air­tight. Refrig­er­ate overnight.
    The next day, pre­heat the oven to 180 degrees (con­vec­tion oven 160 degrees). Roll out the dough on a light­ly floured work sur­face or on bak­ing paper. If nec­es­sary, dust the rolling pin with a lit­tle flour to pre­vent the dough from stick­ing. Cut out cook­ies as desired and place on a bak­ing tray lined with bak­ing paper. Cool if nec­es­sary. Bake for 10- 12 min­utes until gold­en brown. Pull out onto a cool­ing rack with the bak­ing paper and let cool.

Tips

  • If the dough has become too soft and needs to be rolled out again, place it in the freez­er for a few min­utes until it is firmer again.
    Chill the cook­ies on the bak­ing sheet for about 10 min­utes more before bak­ing, then they won’t rise as much.
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