The story behind the recipe
Gingerbread cookies are small cookies made from the same sweet-spiced dough as gingerbread, but instead of baking them in a pan as one cake, they are rolled out and cut with cookie cutters. Wikipedia refers to them as shaped gingerbreads: they can be glazed with icing, chocolate, or sugar syrup and decorated with patterns made from royal icing. The most famous Polish gingerbread center is Toruń. The first mention of Toruń gingerbread dates back to 1380, and in the 17th century, they baked katarzynki, gingerbread shaped like six connected medallions. Toruń's figurative gingerbreads, depicting kings, soldiers, or animals, were likely made from hard dough without leavening agents and were not intended for eating, but people ate them anyway, leading the city councils of Elbląg and Warsaw to ban painting and gilding them.
On the List of Traditional Products by the Ministry of Agriculture, there are several types of gingerbread. "Honey gingerbread from Przemków" in Lower Silesia, registered in 2011, are glazed gingerbreads shaped like plants, animals, and seasonal symbols, baked with heather or buckwheat honey. "Small gingerbreads (pebbles)" from Bytkowice near Bydgoszcz, registered in 2020, are baked every year for Christmas and during Carnival. The entry cites a recipe from the book "Polish Cuisine" from 1980: the dough is rolled out to half a centimeter, cut into circles with a cutter, baked for about 10 minutes, and the gingerbreads are best after 2–3 days in a jar when they soften. The entry for "Szczecin gingerbreads" reminds that in 1938, the authorities of Szczecin initiated the custom of decorating Christmas trees with colorful gingerbreads.
According to Wikipedia, the dough for homemade Christmas gingerbread was traditionally prepared after St. Andrew's Day, a month before the holidays. This recipe is quicker: the dough only needs to be chilled overnight, and the gingerbreads are soft right after cooling. This recipe comes from the blog Ania Gotuje, which the author states is from a page torn from her mother's calendar from 1990. We treat the gingerbread spice and honey the same way as in our recipe for Christmas gingerbread: we only melt the butter with honey and spices, and cool the mixture before combining it with the egg yolks and flour.
Ingredients
Dough (about 100 cookies)
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500 g all-purpose flour (cake or universal)
Abroad: Germany: Type 405; USA and Canada: all-purpose flour; UK: plain flour -
150 g butter
Abroad: unsalted butter; Germany: Butter - 150 g fine sugar or powdered sugar
- 200 g liquid honey (e.g., lime; liquefy crystallized honey and cool it)
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150 g sour cream 18% (about half a cup; can be thick natural yogurt)
Abroad: USA and Canada: sour cream; Germany: Schmand or thick yogurt - 4 pcs egg yolks (from medium eggs)
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2 tsp (about 12 g) baking soda
Abroad: baking soda; UK: bicarbonate of soda; Germany: Natron - 1 tsp (about 2 g) cocoa
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20 g gingerbread spice (about 2 tablespoons, can use up to 30 g; without flour and sugar in the ingredients)
Abroad: Germany: Lebkuchengewürz; UK, Australia: mixed spice; USA, Canada: pumpkin pie spice with a pinch of cloves and pepper
Royal icing
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2 pcs egg whites (from medium eggs, can be pasteurized)
Abroad: pasteurized egg whites or meringue powder -
180 g powdered sugar (for decorating, even up to 80 g more)
Abroad: powdered sugar, confectioners' sugar, icing sugar; Germany: Puderzucker - lemon juice (a few drops)
Method, step by step
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In a saucepan, place the butter, honey, cocoa, and gingerbread spice. Heat over low heat for a few minutes, stirring until the butter completely melts. Remove from heat and let cool: the mixture should be warm but not hot.
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Mix the sour cream with the baking soda. In a large bowl, combine the flour, egg yolks, sour cream with baking soda, and sugar, then pour in the cooled honey mixture and mix thoroughly with a spoon. The dough will be thick and sticky, which is how it should be.
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Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and place it in the fridge for at least 10 hours, preferably overnight. You can keep the dough like this for several days. After chilling, it should have the consistency of play dough.
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Preheat the oven to 170°C (340°F), line the baking sheets with parchment paper. Divide the dough into several smaller balls, keeping the rest in the fridge. Roll out one ball on a lightly floured countertop to a thickness of 6 mm (¼ inch) to 1 cm (½ inch). If the dough is sticky, roll it between two sheets of parchment paper; if it is too hard, cut it into slices and let it sit on the countertop for a moment.
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Cut out the gingerbreads with cookie cutters. Knead the scraps with a piece of fresh dough, roll it out again, and continue cutting until you use all the dough.
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Place the gingerbreads on the baking sheet with plenty of space between them, as they will expand in the oven.
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Bake each sheet on the middle rack for 12 minutes, regardless of thickness. If you want to hang the gingerbreads on the Christmas tree, make holes in them, for example with a straw, right after taking them out of the oven.
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Transfer the gingerbreads to a rack; they cool very quickly. The thinner ones will be slightly crispy on the edges, while the thicker ones will be soft. After cooling, they are ready to eat.
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Prepare the icing: beat the egg whites with a mixer for no more than 30 seconds, just until loose foam forms, not stiff. Add all the powdered sugar and beat on low, then medium speed for about 20 minutes, finally adding a few drops of lemon juice. The icing should be smooth and snow-white. Check the consistency on one gingerbread: if it runs off, add more powdered sugar, even up to 80 g.
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Decorate the cooled gingerbreads with icing: draw outlines, dots, and patterns. Set aside until the icing dries. Once finished, loosely wrap the gingerbreads in paper and store them in a tin or cake box.
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