French pastries for Christmas: fragrant gingerbread and biscuits

We offer you two wonderful recipes for French baked goods for Christmas. Fragrant, smelling of ginger and cinnamon gingerbread can be used not only for a festive table, but also as a Christmas decor. Cookies will please the owners, who do not have much time for holiday efforts. Such delicious pastries you make in a hurry.

Christmas Gingerbread, recipe with turn-based photo

The delicate aroma of cinnamon and cognac, spicy notes of ginger, badyan and honey bees - that's the smell of a real Christmas carrot. His recipe, we will share with you today.

For Christmas baking, make sure to use special spices (dry perfumes) that are easy to prepare at home. In a blender, chop the seeds of coriander (1 tsp) + cinnamon (1 tsp) + cardamom seeds (0.5 tsp) + nutmeg (1/3 tsp) + cloves (2-3 pcs.) + seeds of badyan (1/3 tsp) + fragrant pepper (4-5 pieces) + dry ginger (1/3 tsp). 1 kg of the test is used 1-2 tsp. dry perfume.

Necessary ingredients

• Sugar sand (white) - 450 gr.
• Honey natural - 450 g.
• Water (boiling water) - 250 ml
• Butter 72% - 160 gr.
• Spices for cakes - 1 tsp.
• Flour wheat in / with - 150 gr. (for brewing)
• Flour rye (stripping) - 150 gr.
• Flour wheat in / s - 500-600 gr.
• Soda - 1 tsp.
• Egg of chicken (D-1 or C-1) - 3 pcs.
• Cocoa powder - 30 g.

Baking for Christmas - step by step instruction

1. In a saucepan with a thick bottom, pour half a serving of sugar and put on medium heat. For mixing, we use only a wooden spoon, preferably with a long handle. Prepare boiling water so that it is at hand. When the sugar is melted, let it simmer for 3 minutes, so that caramel has acquired a characteristic rich dark color.

2. Then you need to lower the temperature of the caramel, so that it does not burn and do not acquire the bitter taste of the burnt sugar. This is a very important point! The temperature of boiling caramel is almost two times higher than the temperature of boiling water, so add boiling water to one tablespoon.

   Be careful when adding boiling water. At this moment a very large flow of hot steam is released. Do not lean over the pan. A spoon with a dina handle will be very handy.

   Pour the second half of the sugar and mix until it is completely dissolved. Then add honey and butter. Remove from heat and mix the mass until all the ingredients are dissolved. We pour gingerbread spices.

3. 150 gr. Wheat flour sift and add to the hot mass. Then we introduce soda. (Small bubbles immediately appear on the test, this is the interaction of honey and soda). Let the dough cool down to a warm state. Eggs slightly whisk with a fork until smooth. (You do not need to beat them with a mixer until lush foam). Add to the dough.

4. Mix rye flour and wheat flour, add cocoa and sift. Add the mixture of flour to 2-3 tablespoons in the dough and mix. When the dough becomes difficult to mix with a spoon, pour the flour mixture (2-3 tablespoons) on the work surface and spread the dough.

5. The dough should be kneaded by the method of folding, not passing through the fingers. Sprinkle with flour and flatten it on the surface. Then add up, sprinkle with flour and squash again. So several times. Do not knead the dough too cool, or the gingerbread cookies turn out to be very hard. (After mixing, the dough should lightly stick to the hands). Put it on the palm of your hand, it should slowly drain off your hand. The photo shows how the dough flows down for 1 minute. If it quickly drains from the hand - add more flour. We put it in a cellophane bag and put it away in the refrigerator for a day. Pre-dough can be divided into portions.

6. The finished dough turns out slightly sticky, but it perfectly rolls out. To do this, use a silicone mat or food paper. First, mix the dough with your hands in a layer, cover it with a food film and roll it with a rolling pin to the thickness you need. Remove the film and roll it again with a rolling pin to get rid of the prints of the film.

7. Cut the gingerbread with special molds and bake at a temperature of 200 ° C for about 5-7 minutes. Cool on a flat surface.

   If you plan to hang them as an ornament, make holes for the thread while the gingerbread is hot.

8. We decorate the cakes with icing. And when the glaze froze, we decorate our house with them. Enjoy your Christmas and New Year holidays!

How to make glaze and beautiful drawings from it, read here

French pastries - Christmas cookies

This original Christmas cookie, decorated with glaze, can be served to the table, and can be folded into a beautiful box and given to someone. We will cook it from the usual shortbread dough.

Necessary ingredients

• Oil or margarine - 150 gr.
• Sugar powder - 250 gr.
• Eggs - 2 pcs.
• Flour - 300 gr.
• Salt - ½ tsp.
• Baking powder - 10 gr.
• A small lemon - 1 pc.

Step-by-step instruction

Biscuit

1. Shake with a mixer 150 grams of softened margarine or butter until the mass becomes lush. Gradually add 75 grams of powdered sugar. We put here half a teaspoon of salt, 2 yolks. (Leave the proteins for glaze). Mix everything with a mixer until smooth.

2. In a bowl, pour 300 grams of flour mixed with 10 grams of baking powder. We make a deepening and lay out the whipped oil mixture. We knead, we make dough from the dough and send it to the refrigerator for half an hour.

3. Roll out the dough, cut out any shapes with a shape. We take from the table these figures very neatly with a shovel and lay out on a sheet. They will burn for about 30 minutes. Make sure that the cookies are not stale. We take out the French pastries and let it cool.

Glaze

4. Take one protein, add to it half a tablespoon of lemon juice. Stir and start to gradually introduce sugar powder. A total of 150-200 grams of powder should be left - stir and look at the density. The glaze must drain from the spoon with a thick drop and do not spread very much. Mixer it does not need to be beaten - otherwise there will be bubbles, it will not be smooth and shiny.

5. We cover with a brush our cold Christmas cookies. Sprinkle any powder, you can the one that remained from the Easter cakes. Our cookies for Christmas are ready!

Another wonderful recipe for Christmas French pastries is here . From the article you will learn the step-by-step recipe for a real gingerbread house.