Gingerbread

Gingerbread is a must for Christmas in Scandinavia. As a kid, I always baked gingerbreads at home with my siblings or my friends. This is a tradition I will give to my daughter, for her to also back her gingerbreads when she is old enough to help me in the kitchen. It’s easy and convenient to buy a ready gingerbread dough today, but I prefer to bake my own dough. The syrup is not as easy to find in USA as in Scandinavia. I found a great golden syrup that works perfectly.

I just had to use the moose shaped gingerbread mould this year. 😉

Ingredients (approximately 100 cookies):

• 2/3 cup granulated sugar
• 1/3 cup golden syrup
• 1/3 cup water
• 8 1/2 tbsp butter
• 1 tbsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tbsp ground cardamom
• 1/2 tbsp ground cloves
• 1/2 tbsp ground ginger
• 1/2 tbsp baking soda
• 3 cups all purpose flour

Add sugar, syrup and water into a saucepan and heat until the sugar melt. Then remove the saucepan from the heat.

Add butter, cinnamon, cardamom, cloves and ginger into a bowl. Pour the hot sugar mix over the butter and mix it all together. Let it now cool down to room temperature.

Mix flour and baking soda in a separate bowl. Now add the flour mix into the bowl with the spices mixture. I use a stand mixer which I think is the easiest way to mix it all together. Mix until the dough is smooth, and let it be loose (not too much flour). Now, let the dough rest, covered with plastic foil, in the refrigerator for 1-2 days.

Baking the gingerbreads:

Pre heat the oven to 400ºF. Cut the dough in 4-6 pieces. Take one piece and roll it out with the help from a roll pin. Use come flour on the baking board and the roll pin before starting. Roll out the dough as thin as you prefer (I prefer thin gingerbreads). Use gingerbread moulds and cut out as many shapes as possible. Place the gingerbreads on an oven tray covered with parchment paper. Now take the next dough piece and continue until you have cut out all your gingerbreads.

Bake in the oven for approximately 4-6 minutes. Be careful so you don’t burn your gingerbreads.

Now it smells “Christmas” in the kitchen. 🙂