Polish Christmas gingerbread cookies: soft, honey-based, for cutting out with children
Gingerbread cookies that are soft straight from the oven, not after three weeks: honey, butter and sugar melted together, flour with cocoa and gingerbread spice, one egg. The dough rests overnight in the fridge; in the morning you cut out shapes and bake for ten minutes. Sixty cookies, and a two-ingredient lemon icing.
Your own work in that: 1 h 10 min.
- Dough 20 min
- Resting in the fridge 720 min
- Cutting out 30 min
- Baking 30 min
- Icing 20 min
- Icing sets 60 min
Step by step
0 / 6 doneMelt the honey with the butter and sugar
Warm the honey, butter and sugar in a saucepan over low heat, stirring, until the sugar dissolves and the mixture is smooth. Don't boil: it is enough for the sugar to dissolve. Set aside for 10 minutes, until lukewarm.
Ingredients: 200 g honey · 100 g butter · 100 g sugar · 500 g plain flour · 2 tbsp cocoa powder · 2 tbsp gingerbread spice mix · 1½ tsp bicarbonate of soda · 1 pinch salt · 1 pcs egg
TipBuckwheat honey gives dark, bold cookies. Wildflower honey gives milder ones that children love.
Melted, not boiledKnead the dough
In a bowl mix the flour, cocoa, gingerbread spice, soda and salt. Pour in the lukewarm honey mixture, add the egg and stir with a spoon, then knead briefly by hand into a smooth, fairly soft dough. If it sticks badly to your hands, add a spoon of flour, but no more than two.
TipThe soda reacts with the acids in the honey and cocoa and lightens the cookies. Their softness comes mainly from the honey, which holds moisture, and from the 4 mm thickness.
Dry, wet, egg, a short kneadChill overnight
Flatten the dough into a disc, wrap in cling film and refrigerate for 12 hours (2 at minimum). Cold dough doesn't stick to the board, and overnight the spices work their way through the whole dough.
A disc in film, into the fridge overnightRoll and cut
Heat the oven to 180 °C and line two trays with paper. Divide the dough into 3, roll each on a floured surface to 4 mm. Cut with cookie cutters and lay on the tray 2 cm apart. Gather the scraps, knead and roll again.
Tip4 mm gives soft cookies; 2 mm gives crisp ones. Keep to one thickness per tray so they bake evenly.
Four millimetres, 2 cm apartBake briefly
Bake 8–10 minutes at 180 °C, one tray at a time, on the middle shelf; the whole batch makes 3–4 trays, about 30 minutes of baking in total. The cookies puff slightly and lose their shine; they come out very soft and firm up a little as they cool. Don't bake longer, even if they look underdone.
Ten minutes, out while still softCool and ice
Cool on a rack for 15 minutes. Beat the icing sugar with the lemon juice into a thick, glossy icing: it should run slowly off the spoon. Pipe with a paper cone or the tip of a teaspoon. Leave an hour to set. In a tin they keep 4 weeks and get softer every day.
Ingredients: 150 g icing sugar · ½ pcs lemon, juice
Thick lemon icing, a paper cone
Before you start
Hard cookies
Baked too long or rolled too thin. Put them in a tin with a quarter of an apple for 2 days: the moisture from the apple softens them.
For the tree
Before baking, poke a hole in each cookie with a straw. Once cool, thread a ribbon through. Un-iced, they hang on the tree until Epiphany.
Your own spice mix
2½ teaspoons cinnamon, 1 teaspoon each ground ginger and cloves, half a teaspoon each nutmeg, cardamom and allspice. That is exactly 2 tablespoons.
