For many people, New Year and Christmas are the holidays that have been loved since childhood. And in order to make them even more cozy, fragrant and family, at the end of December in some countries gingerbread cookies in the form of gingerbread men and gingerbread houses are baked. It is customary to decorate them with the whole family, and then give gifts to loved ones and relatives with their own hand-made presents. So that the result of the creative process could please every member of the family, for decoration you will need a special glaze for painting gingerbread.
Recipes for cooking and gingerbread, and glaze are presented in the article. We offer to make both ginger men and a gingerbread house. And then the aroma of baking will reign in your house until the end of all holidays.
Gingerbread recipe for glaze painting
The aroma of baking with ginger for many people is associated with the New Year holidays and cozy winter evenings. In America and Western European countries, gingerbread men and a gingerbread house have long been symbols of the coming Christmas. It is customary to paint them with glaze and give it to relatives and friends for the holiday.
We offer a step-by-step recipe for gingerbread with glaze painting:
- Powdered sugar (80 g) is poured into a deep bowl for kneading dough, butter (80 g) and an egg are added.
- The ingredients are beaten with a mixer for three minutes until a homogeneous consistency is obtained.
- The zest of lemon and orange is added to the whipped mass, ginger (1 tbsp.spoon), honey (2 tbsp.spoons) and vanilla extract (1 tsp) are grated on a fine grater.
- Sifted flour combines with baking powder (1.5 teaspoons), cinnamon (2 teaspoons), cocoa powder (1 tablespoon), a pinch of salt, nutmeg and ground cloves. All ingredients are mixed and added to the liquid mass.
- The mixed dough is placed in a film and sent to the refrigerator for 2 hours.
- Chilled dough is rolled between two sheets of baking paper to a thickness of 5-7 mm. Using cuts for dough, products of a certain shape are cut out.
- Gingerbread preparations are sent to a preheated oven (180 °) for 7-10 minutes.
Cooled products are painted with white glaze.
Royal Iceing (recipe): gingerbread icing for painting
For royal aising, which is used to create a contour of the drawing and painting, you will need fresh egg white, powdered sugar and lemon juice. The recipe for the glaze is as follows:
- Pour the proteins of two or three eggs with a total weight of 90 grams into a deep bowl.
- Top with powdered powdered sugar (455-500 grams), previously sifted through a sieve or organza.
- Beat the contents of the bowl with a mixer first at low speeds, and then at medium speed until smooth and stable peaks form.
- Before mixing, add 5 drops of lemon juice to the icing.
If the icing has a yellowish tint, this means that the protein mass is not whipped up to the end. With the correct sequence of actions, you should get a snow-white and glossy glaze for painting gingerbread. The recipe, reviews of which can only be found positive, allows you to create high-quality, easy-to-use icebergs.
Ready glaze dries very quickly in the air. To prevent this from happening immediately after kneading, it is necessary to fill the cornetics with ice and start painting.
Gingerbread icing for gingerbread decoration
Royal Aising is ideal for creating an even outline and artistic painting of the finished product. And to fill the central part of the picture, you need a more liquid glaze for painting gingerbread.
The recipe for casting ice, as confectioners call it, is to perform the following steps step-by-step:
- Prepare royal icing according to the recipe above.
- Put a portion of the thick glaze in another bowl and dilute it with a small amount of cold water, adding liquid literally a teaspoon.
- You can check the readiness for filling with a knife. To do this, hold the blade of the knife over the glaze, after which they count to 10. If in these 10 seconds the trace from the ice disappears, then the fill is ready.
To obtain a perfectly flat and smooth surface, it is important to achieve the correct consistency of the pouring glaze.
How to make a gingerbread house at home?
Two or even three gingerbread houses can be made from the dough according to the following recipe. Its step-by-step preparation is as follows:
- Butter (300 g), honey and sugar (500 g each) are heated in a pan on the stove until all the ingredients are completely dissolved. It is important not to let the mixture boil, but only to warm it, then remove from heat and cool.
- Into the cooled honey and sugar mass, add eggs (2 pcs.) And cognac (3 tbsp. Tablespoons) with a fork.
- In 600 g of sifted flour add cocoa (50 g), cinnamon (1 teaspoon), a pinch of ginger, cardamom, cloves, anise, zest of orange, lemon and vanilla.
- Combine honey with flour. Knead a pleasant dough in the work, gradually adding more flour (up to 600 g).
- Put the dough in polyethylene and then in the refrigerator overnight.
- In the morning, roll out the dough on baking paper, cut out the details of the house according to pre-prepared templates and bake them in the oven (at 180 ° 20 minutes).
Now it remains to prepare a thick glaze (royal icing) and use it to combine all the details of the house.
Glaze for gingerbread without eggs
For a number of reasons, far from all people can consume eggs and the products of which they are part. In this case, instead of traditional icing, you can use glaze for gingerbread without eggs.
The glaze prepared according to the recipe below is homogeneous, glossy, shiny, and evenly lays on the surface of finished products. A step-by-step recipe is as follows:
- In a powdered sugar sifted through a sieve (110 g), a tablespoon of milk and the same amount of corn syrup are poured. The last ingredient at home can be replaced with invert syrup or confectionery glaze.
- Aising is mixed until smooth. If the glaze is too thick, the addition of corn syrup is allowed.
- The desired dye is added to the finished icing, after which you need to put it in the cornet and put on the gingerbread.
Egg-free Gingerbread Glaze with Lemon Juice
Thick and shiny glaze without eggs is obtained on the basis of powdered sugar, lemon juice and water. It is lemon juice that gives it the necessary gloss and a pleasant sourness in taste. The result is a very easy-to-use glaze for painting gingerbread without eggs.
The recipe for such an icing is very simple. In a deep bowl, only three ingredients are mixed: icing sugar (200 g), lemon juice and warm water (2 tbsp each). The prepared glaze is applied to the gingerbread with a brush or simply gently poured on top. To get a thicker icing in the process of mixing, you do not need to add water to the ingredients, just powdered sugar and juice.
Colored glaze for gingerbread
All types of glaze are subject to coloring with food colors: contour, and pouring, and the thickest, intended for the final painting of gingerbread. To get a multi-colored aising, it is necessary to lay out the glaze made in advance for painting gingerbreads in different bowls. The recipe for its preparation depends on the type of work performed (drawing a contour, painting or pouring the surface).
Further, a water-soluble gel or dry food coloring is added to the prepared glaze. The mass is thoroughly kneaded and applied to the gingerbread cookies. If the glaze after adding the dye is too thick, you can add a little more icing sugar to it. The color intensity of the icing can also be adjusted by adding different amounts of dye.
Chocolate Glaze Recipe
When decorating gingerbread cookies, imagination can be limitless. For example, as a fill or base, you can use not only sugar, but also chocolate icing for painting gingerbread.
The recipe for such a delicious icing is as follows:
- Melt the dark chocolate (100 g) in a water bath.
- Add butter (40 g) to it.
- Add to the chocolate mass first the crushed white yolk, and then the whipped protein.
- Cool the icing in the refrigerator to a temperature of 30 °, after which you can start applying it to the gingerbread cookies.
Thanks to butter, chocolate glaze will turn out to be glossy and shiny.