Home made gingerbread cookies

Christmas feeling is all around and we gave our try to make home made Gingerbread cookies. I always had thought it was a rather messy process and hard work, but it was not that bad after all. And result is tasty.

You will need (I used this recipe as main guideline and added some minor modifications):

1kg sugar (I intended to use 500g honey and 500g sugar as seen in picture, but ended up with using sugar only)

1 glass cold water

500g butter

1,2 kg flour

1 tsp baking soda mixed with 3-4 tbsp sour cream

3 eggs

gingerbread spices (15 cardamon pods, 1,5 tsp ground cinnamon, 30 cloves, 1,5 tsp ground ginger, 3 tsp ground corriander, 15 black pepper, orange and lemon rind).

That below posing with our gingerbread ingredients is Albert from England, who is visiting Australian schools and spent weekend with us. Hope he enjoyed baking Christmas goodies :)

So to start grind spices and put aside

Melt sugar on the stove until all melted. That will take about 20-30 minutes. Stir occasionally and be careful not to burn syrup. Take of the stove. Picture below is of the very beginning of the process.

When sugar is transformed into dark brown syrup, add water and butter. Stir until mixture is smooth and well combined.

Check if mixture is reasonably warm, not hot. Only then add about half of flour and mix well.

Add sour cream and soda mixture and 3 well beaten eggs. Leave in fridge to rest until next day.

Next day add flour until get consistence of good dough. Roll it, cut cookies, place on baking trays, put in oven and bake until brown (about 10 mins at 200C, but that will really depend on your oven). Be careful not to overcook as then gingerbread cookies will become bitter.

Some not too successful examples :(

And some good ones :)

Merry Christmas everyone!