Honey Gingerbread for a Sweet Year

Today I suggest trying honey gingerbread instead of the usual lekach. First, it is also fitting for wishing someone a "sweet year," and second, we will soon be publishing a family recipe for carp with gingerbread, so learning to make homemade gingerbread is simply a must :)!

If you just want gingerbread cookies without a filling, you can stop here. The remaining steps are for filled gingerbread:

First, let's make the dough: it is made the same way whether for cookies or gingerbread. Beat the butter (margarine) at the mixer's highest speed until it turns pale. This will take about 7-10 minutes. Without turning off the mixer or stopping the beating, gradually add the sugar to the butter: add a little, beat for a couple of minutes, add a little more… and so on.

Now you can turn off the mixer and go ahead and add the molasses, honey, and spices. At home, I replace the molasses with soft cane sugar: it must be soft—meaning that it crumbles in the packet rather than pouring freely, and is slightly moist.

Now for the spices. I simply mixed them together to make my own blend. Here are the spices that must be included: cinnamon, ginger, cardamom, nutmeg, black pepper, and cloves (all ground). Mix them together, and you're done! (You can make extra and keep it in a separate bag.)

So, we've added molasses/soft sugar, honey, and spices to the beaten butter. Beat everything for another minute to combine thoroughly.

Now sift the flour and add the baking powder to it. Then add the flour to the butter mixture and mix thoroughly with a spoon. Mixed it? Now use the mixer for just 5 seconds to bring the dough together. But it is important not to overdo it! Just a quick whiz-whiz, and you will see that the dough has come together. It will be crumbly rather than one solid mass—that's what we're looking for.

From here, we can do whatever we like with this dough. For one large gingerbread cake, I put all the dough in a round pan 25 cm in diameter and baked it in the oven for 25 minutes at 170 degrees. If you want cookies instead, knead the dough thoroughly by hand, working it for about 10 minutes until it becomes elastic, then carefully roll it out with a rolling pin, continually dusting the table and rolling pin with flour. It is important that the dough neither crumble nor stick, but no white flour should remain on the finished shapes, or it will still be visible after baking. You can brush off any excess flour before putting them in the oven.

Bake the small gingerbread cookies for 7-12 minutes (depending on your oven). Watch that they do not brown too much: they should only just set and rise a little, so that they stay soft and airy inside and do not dry out during storage.

The small shapes can be decorated with colored egg-white icing or chocolate icing.

If you decide to make a filled gingerbread cake, you will also need to make a soaking syrup, moisten the cake layer with it, spread on the filling, and then glaze it:

The syrup is very easy to make: combine sugar with an equal amount of water in a small saucepan and bring to a boil, stirring constantly. Let it cool and, if you are making it for adults, add your favorite liqueur. Cut the large round gingerbread cake in half horizontally. Soak the top (!) half with the syrup, because the bottom half will absorb some of the filling. Spread the jam evenly over the bottom half. I used smooth apple jam—it was delicious! Cover with the syrup-soaked top half, press down, and go make the glaze.

The glaze is simple too: take plenty of sugar and a little water (I gave the proportions at the very beginning), and bring to a boil, stirring constantly so that the sugar dissolves completely. Do not let this mixture cool, or it will thicken.

Take a brush, dip it in the glaze, and start spreading it over the surface of the gingerbread cake with vigorous back-and-forth strokes, as though you were a bad painter in a terrible hurry. Really energetically! Enough to tire your hand out in a minute. Add more glaze and spread it again. This way, it covers the entire surface and, as it begins to set, turns white, as gingerbread glaze usually does.

Then simply let the gingerbread cake cool and give the syrup and filling time to soak in thoroughly—and it is ready to taste!

My description may make this sound complicated, but all the steps are actually quite simple. Try starting with plain gingerbread cookies without filling, and then even the filled version will seem easy as can be!