A cup of novelty

The cold season has come and we are already thinking about the specific sweets of winter. My favorite is gingerbread, which has that flavor that I remember from childhood, from my mother’s kitchen. Cinnamon and ginger, mmmm. I invite you to take a cup of hot chocolate and a notebook. I’m kidding, you don’t need notes, you have the article at hand. Today I want to share the recipe for my mother’s gingerbread who made a fairytale during the Christmas period.

So you only need a few ingredients:
• 350g plain white flour
• a teaspoon of baking soda
• about 2 teaspoons of ginger, depending on how much you want to feel the flavor
• a teaspoon of ground cinnamon
• 125g of butter
• 175g of brown sugar
• 3 teaspoons of vanilla essence
• 1 free-range egg

And now let’s move on to the funniest part, which is to put all the ingredients together to create magic.

Step 1: Sift together the flour, baking soda, and cinnamon, and then add the finely chopped ginger to a large bowl. I guess you want to bake for the whole family or a friend’s gathering.

Step 2: Lightly beat the egg, vanilla essence, and melted butter with a mixer until it has a fine consistency then add the already sifted powders. Knead the dough a little until all the ingredients are incorporated then wrap in foil and put in the fridge for 15 minutes. Sounds easy so far, doesn’t it?

Step 3: Carefully preheat the oven to 180 C and line the trays with baking paper.

Step 4: Take the dough out of the fridge, spread it on a thin layer of flour until it reaches half a centimeter, then get out the heavy artillery, that is all those nice shapes like snowmen, stars, or fir trees. Once you have the shapes made, put them in the baking trays. However, leave some space between them because they will grow in the oven.

Step 5: Bake for 12-15 minutes or until looks lightly browned. Leave them in the tray for 10 minutes and then you can move them on a grill to finish cooling. Once they have cooled, let your imagination run wild and decorate them as you wish, either with commercial glaze or cake cream with which you can make all kinds of figurines.

These delicacies are so easy to prepare, and is a maximum of one hour they are ready, starting with the sifting of the flour and until they cool after removing them from the oven. This recipe contains the ingredients for 20 gingerbread.

The joy of this season evokes so many memories but especially those moments with me and my mother, in the kitchen, making these cookies. I can feel the smell of sugar, ginger, and cinnamon even now, after so many years.
I hope you’ll like my mother’s recipe and enjoy this wonderful season. And let us pay more attention to those around us now on the eve of the holidays.

DEEA OLIVIA