Scent of Cinnamon – Christmas Cookie Marathon. Part 1

18-03-2011

Тhe day is almost over and I am ready with my Christmas cookies. Oh, do not worry, it will not take you all day to bake them - I just started later than it was planned.

At the moment, I can smell cinnamon everywhere - but what is Christmas without cinnamon?

Now, take your coffee, sit down and read carefully how to prepare your Christmas cookies. By the way they turn out very nice, even some of them can be used for Christmas tree decoration. Yes, you can leave a bowl of cookies near the Christmas tree and your guests can pick up one and immediately substitute it with another from the bowl.

Hopefully you have done your grocery. If you don′t have any of the ingredients, do not worry we will improvise.

Here are the recipes:

Gingerbread Cookies:

Preparation time : 2 hours

Baking time : 1 hour

Makes 40 – depending on the size of your cutters

3 cups of flour, around 750 grams
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
1/3 tsp ginger
1/3 tsp ground cloves
1/3 tsp ground cardamom
10 grams baking powder – 1 package
1 tsp baking soda
1 tbsp vinegar
1 tbsp cold water
2 eggs
1 cup brown sugar
2/3 sun seed oil
2/3 cup honey
200 grams dark chocolate for decoration
nuts, fruit jams

Preheat oven to 170°C. Line two baking tins with baking paper.

Beat the eggs and the sugar at medium speed until creamy, then start adding oil and honey, beating all the time.

Meanwhile, mix the vinegar with the water and dissolve the baking soda in it. Add it to the eggs-sugar mixture.

Sift the flour in a large dish; add the spices and the baking powder. Form a well in the middle and start pouring with one hand the eggs-sugar mixture and stir with the other. Star kneading, the consistency of the dough will be very sticky. Add some flour if needed, but be careful – the dough should remain soft.

Divide the dough in 3 pieces. Place one piece on a surface suitable for rolling and roll out to approximately 5mm thickness. Cut it out with cookie cutters* and transfer the figures in the lined tin. Bake for 15-20 minutes until they become lightly brown.

Ways to cut out cookies

Option 1: I used wine glass to cut circles, after that from the middle of each circle, with small cutter I cut out another figure as shown on the picture.

After that I coated these circles with dark chocolate and tied a string to each one. These will be used for Christmas three decoration.

Option 2: Again with the wine glass I cut out only circles.

I mixed an orange jelly with some melted dark chocolate and coated already baked circles. Decoration was finalized with a small figure on the top. If you don’t have orange jelly, use strawberry or raspberry instead. Both of them go well together with the dark chocolate flavor.

Option 3: Cut out some figures with cookie cutters.

Gingersnaps

Preparation time 40 minutes

Baking time 30-60 minutes

Makes 48

Recipe is adopted from www.bakingobsession.com

2 cups all purpose flour
2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp ground ginger
1 ½ tsp cinnamon
1/3 tsp ground cardamom
1/3 tsp ground cloves
1/3 tsp nutmeg
¼ tsp salt
125 grams butter - if you are vegetarian, substitute with the same amount of coconut butter
1/4 cup of molasses, I couldn’t find and substitute it with brown sugar
½ cup white sugar
½ cup brown sugar
1 large egg – vegetarians can substitute it with 30-50 ml of water.
2 tbsp finely grated fresh ginger root
about ½ cup fine crystallized sugar for rolling

Preheat oven to 170°C. Line two baking tins with baking paper.

In a bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, all dry spices, salt and whisk to combine.

Combine the warm butter, both types of sugar, fresh ginger and egg or water and beat with the electric mixture until creamy. Add the dry ingredients and mix. If the consistency of the mixture is crumbled add some water, if it is sticky and wet add some flour and knead. Divide the dough in 4 pieces and roll out 4 ropes with thickness of approximately 2 centimeters. Cut each rope in small pieces and form into 2 centimeters balls. Roll the balls in the crystallized sugar and arrange in the baking tin. During baking balls will spread a little - leave enough space between each ball (3 cm apart).

Bake for 12-15 minutes until they puff up and crack on the surface. For crunchy cookies, bake until brown at the edges.

When ready, take out from the oven and transfer to a cooling rack.

Serve separate or with strawberry jam on a side.

To be continued……….

P.S Tomorrow, Sunday, while you are baking, I will be decorating cookies with a friend, who is an artist. I will share with you her masterpieces on Monday.

Stay tuned and enjoy your baking!

Desi

Products:
eggs
honey
flours » all purpose
sugar » white

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