When I refer to this recipe as being 'our family's', I don't mean that this recipe has been handed down through generations, I mean, I worked on this recipe overtime to make it exactly to my family's liking -- this recipe has been eight years in the making!
We make gingerbread cookies every Christmas and every Winter -- because, in Australia (and NZ), our Summer is Christmas time. I love having freshly made gingerbread in Winter. Everyone's house should smell like gingerbread during Winter! This recipe is enough ginger to call it 'Gingerbread' but not so much that you're feeling the heat of it, and, like all mouth-watering cookies.. they're deliciously soft! And the pretty royal icing art? That's SUPER easy.. the three you see pictured? My seven and five-year-old decorated those! (Six and four at the time!).
I'll let you know now, the royal icing I make uses raw egg whites. Some people are cool with that, others are worried about salmonella. Everyone has their own views on it but, for me, I'm all about minimal wastage; considering you only use the yolk for the dough, you've got whites sitting there doing nothing. There's so much information out there in regards to whether or not it's safe to eat. This is how I've always done it and we've never gotten sick. Each to their own. If you prefer, there are recipes out there with powdered egg or pasteurised eggs.
*You can absolutely half this recipe if you're not too fond of baking and icing 40 cookies. I make an afternoon out of it so we have an entire cookie jar FULL for the next couple of weeks.
MAKES: 40.. give or take, depending on how much of the dough you eat first!
PREP TIME: 45 minutes
COOK TIME: 8 minutes
Ingredients:
- 250g Unsalted Butter, softened
- 1 cup Brown Sugar, firmly packed (200g)
- 2 eggs, separate and put whites aside for icing
- 1 cup Golden Syrup (250ml)
- 1 teaspoon Vanilla Bean Paste (You can totally use extract or essence!)
- 5 cups Plain Flour (750g)
- 2 1/2 Tablespoons ground Ginger
- 2 teaspoons All Spice
- 2 teaspoons ground Cinnamon
- 2 teaspoons Bi-carb soda
- Plain flour, to dust
- 2 cups Icing Sugar (300g) *NOT Icing Sugar Mixture* -- in NZ, Chelsea make it and it's called 'Decorating Icing Sugar'.. look for the stuff without cornflour.
- Baking paper
- a few drops of GEL food colouring of your choice
- a teaspoon of lemon juice OR, if you're not a fan of lemon flavoured icing, a teaspoon of vanilla bean paste or extract is really good too!.. I'm not a fan of essence, but each to their own! -- but you can really add any flavour you like, these are just the flavours most people keep in their pantry.
- some toothpicks or skewers
Cream the butter and brown sugar together -- be sure your butter isn't TOO soft. You want it to be soft enough to make an indentation on the surface, but not so soft that you could stick your finger right through your stick of butter.
Add vanilla, bi-carb soda and golden syrup; beat on medium speed until all ingredients have been incorporated.
In a separate bowl, sift in your flour, ginger, mixed spice and cinnamon. Mix to combine and add half a cup to your butter mixture before beating on a low speed. Stop when flour mixture has been incorporated completely.
Add your first egg yolk, beating through on a low speed until completely incorporated.
Add a cup and a half of your flour mixture, beat on low speed until completely incorporated before adding another cup of your flour mixture.
Add your second egg yolk to the mix, beating on low until completely incorporated.
Add another cup of flour mixture, beating on low speed until completely incorporated.
At this point, your mixture will now be turning into a dough but it will still be sticky. With your last cup of flour mixture, add half a cup, combine, and then add the last half, bit by bit until it's all been added and completely incorporated.
Turn dough out onto a sheet of baking paper which has been lightly dusted with flour, pressing into a disk, about the size of a dinner plate. Lightly dust the top with flour and cover with another sheet of baking paper. *Why use flour if your using non-stick paper? Because the dough will catch on the baking paper if you don't, making your cookies look a little 'shabby'.*
With a rolling pin, roll your dough to about 2 cm thickness before leaving your dough to rest in the fridge for approximately 30 minutes.
Preheat your oven to 180℃.
Once your dough has rested for 30 minutes, take it out and, with a rolling pin and your dough still between the two sheets of baking paper, roll your dough out until it's about 1cm in thickness.
Now, you can really use any kind of cookie cutter you like! We use a mix of cutters because the kids can never agree on the same one and I like having circles.. because I'm super 'vanilla'. To get around 40 cookies, I use a 5cm round cutter. Place your cookies on a lined baking tray, about 2cm apart, and bake for 8 minutes if you like your gingerbread soft, 10 minutes if you like them with a bit of crunch and 9 minutes for something a little in between. Once they're done, place them on a cooling rack to cool completely before icing. *If you cook them for 8 minutes, they'll be quite soft and harden a little as they cool. Removing them from the tray as soon as you take them out of the oven can cause them to break. Leave them on the tray for a couple of minutes before carefully transferring them to a cooling rack.*
Now, for that Royal Icing! I love royal icing. John and I like lemon but the kids aren't about that life, so we make vanilla flavoured most of the time.
With a stand mixer and your whisk attachment, whisk your egg whites until soft peaks form. This will take a few minutes on high, longer if your eggs aren't fresh.
Whilst your egg whites are being whisked, sift your icing sugar into a separate bowl.
Once you have soft peaks, turn your mixer down to slow speed and add your icing sugar slowly, to avoid it all flying back out of the bowl. Turn to high and mix until you have firm peaks.
Once you have firm peaks, add your choice of flavouring and give it another mix to completely incorporate. You can leave it without any flavouring but it WILL taste and smell like egg whites.
Separate your mixture into bowls and add your colouring. I also specified 'GEL' food colouring. This is because, if you use a liquid colour, that will change the consistency of your icing.
Now, the icing you use to LINE with, you need it to be a thicker, 'pipe-able' consistency. The icing you use to FLOOD with, you need it to be a thinner, almost 'pour-able' consistency. To get your 'flood' icing to the right consistency, add about 1 teaspoon of cold water to your mixture. I've included a great video to explain this for you;
Once you're happy with the consistency of your icing, put them into piping bags or squeeze bottles, ready to decorate. -- If you only have one piping bag or squeeze bottle, put the thicker icing in that and just use a teaspoon for the others.
Using the thicker 'line' icing, line your cookies. Using your 'flood' icing, flood the inside area of your lined cookie, using a toothpick or skewer to push the icing into the corners and against the side.
When it comes to decorating, there are so many different options!!
This recipe seems like a lot of work, and it can be if you're making all 40 cookies look really pretty, but honestly, I start off making them pretty and then the second half are always just 'whatever' so I can hurry up and eat them. I will also bake half and freeze the other half of the dough. When I'm ready to bake the frozen half, I leave it on the bench and it's ready to work with in about an hour because I freeze it flat, at about 1cm thickness. If I froze it in a ball or log, it would take a bit longer to defrost.
Have fun with it and make it your own! Don't forget to share yours with loved ones.
Erin Michele Thomson ∙ Tauranga Photographer ∙ info@erinmichele.co.nz
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