Gingerbread

I love gingerbread man! As cookies, in movies – especially the one in Shreck, and we all love to make a gingerbread house (either from Hans und Grethel or just as a holiday tradition).

The worst gingerbread I ever made – sugar-free diabetic version when I had pregnancy diabetes… They were horrible – way too hard but still better than nothing:D

Gingerbread dates waaaay back to 2400 BC Greece! Chinese developed their version in 10th century and in the late middle ages, Europeans had their own recipe. nowadays it’s a staple Christmas cookie in almost all Europe (especially in the middle and north).

Gingerbread is one of the most known Christmas cookies…

In Scandinavia, pepparkakor (gingersnap cookies, similar to speculoos) are given to the old and sick in hospitals and nursing homes.
Real gingerbread is, however, most known in Germany, where they call it “Lebkuchen” and this recipe is believed to be invented in 15th century in Belgium.

There are many versions of gingerbread cookies – some are hard, others soft that melt in your mouth. Some are covered in chocolate, some decorated with sugar icing. Some contain honey as one of the main ingredients and some do without it. The honey version often needs another lever ingredient because soda and baking powder can’t handle the heavy dough. Some are elaboratively shaped in animals, men, pretzels, stars, hearts or other decorations and some are just rolled into a ball.
In Europe, the mix can even be bought in a bag and just eggs and water are added… There is no right or wrong way but it might take you a few trials to find your favourite recipe because they can be quite different in texture and taste. I dream of a year when I will have time to try 10 or even 20 different recipes at once so we could compare them and decide on our best:). In the meantime here is one we did so far:

RECIPE for classic cookies from my childhood (funny they are called gingerbread although they don’t contain ginger)

INGREDIENTS
200 g honey
170 g brown sugar
70 g butter
2 eggs
100 g ground hazelnuts or walnuts
80 g ground chocolate
100 g raisins
70 g arancini (candied tangerine peel)
30 g citronate (candied lemon peel)
grated lemon peel (of bio-lemon)
grated orange peel (of bio-orange)
2 tablespoons of rum
pinch of salt
1 heaping teaspoon of ground cinnamon
1/2 heaping spoon of ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon cardamom
1 sachet of vanilla sugar (or substitute for essence or paste)
500 g flour
1 baking powder

INSTRUCTIONS
Mix honey, sugar, butter and eggs until fluffy. Ground the nuts and chocolate if not grounded. Ground raisins and candied and normal peel. Sift flour with baking powder and spices and mix everything into a dough. Leave it to rest for 24 hours in cold (in the refrigerator or outside if it’s cold winter).
Roll out the dough to about 3-5 mm (about 1/8 to 1/4 of an inch), cut out shapes, glaze them with egg and optionally decorate with almonds and candied peel. Bake for 15 minutes at 180°C (356 F).
* If you want you can decorate them with sugar glaze made of 200 g powdered sugar, 1 vanilla sugar (or essence), 1 egg-white and a couple of drops of rum.
* If you make cookies for kids, I would rather make a glaze out of sugar and lemon juice, though (no rum or raw egg;).

Yule’s log

 The Yule log, Yule clog, or Christmas block was a specially selected log that people burned a portion at a time for 12 consecutive days (from Christmas to the Three Kings on the sixth of January) and in some places, it was put under the bed in between as the protection against lighting and fire (well… I’m not sure putting a half-burned log under the bed is the best way to protect the house against fire:D). Others counted sparks and made wishes for each spark etc…

Yule’s log: a sweet dessert from France – sponge roulade, filled with chocolate and iced with chocolate ganache. Add the texture with a knife or a fork and/or spread some chocolate pieces on. Powdered sugar or sugar pearls can be added as the snow…

The tradition was most practised in the UK and consequently the USA but it derives from old German pagan celebrations of solstice with bonfires where people decorated real logs in the forest. Yule was an old German pagan god that German people worshipped at this time of year (later Christianity transformed the rituals and “Yule time” or “Yule season” into Christmastide). As I read, new pagans still worship Yule and make a mini version of Yule’s log out of natural materials.

Another version with cream cheese filling and a little bit more elaborative decoration (real leaves, red current and chocolate-covered cereal balls)

Yule log was also made into a cake and we are especially fond of this recreation and would fondly worship the god of chocolate had it existed;). Yule’s log is also called bûche de Noël – because it was invented in 19th century in France and is most widely served in France, Switzerland (the French part) and Belgium (the French part). It is a fantastic dessert made of sponge cake (genoise) rolled into a roulade to resemble the log and filled with a chocolate or chestnut filling. The roulade is iced with chocolate icing (usually ganache) that is textured by dragging a fork through it so it looks like a bark. Decorations from marzipan or sugar paste or real berries etc… can be added. It is very rich in flavour but not too filling.

We bake it every single year and I always use a new recipe whenever I can find one. I have some on my Pinterest board (search among the sweets;)). We have liked them all because honestly, I don’t think how someone would make a chocolate roulade that wouldn’t be good:). Give it a try – you can’t mess this one up! It will always taste good – no matter which recipe you try and it will always look “log-like” enough – it’s not difficult to make something look like a piece of log, trust me;). Kids can help because this is not so elaborate and it can be a lot of fun!
*In case somebody needs a recipe or struggles with the instructions, comment below and I’ll try to help (or publish a recipe:).