Chef Mik's Gingerbread Cookies

Gingerbread cookies are some of my absolute favorite cookies in the world! Which speak to winter an open fire, mulled wine, companionship the cheer and laughter greeted by the rich bouquet of spices and scents wafting through the air. This is what these cookies represent to me. More over Sweden has a rich history dating back to the middle ages when they were baked by nuns who sometimes even hung them as decorations. Though Armenians may have first baked gingerbread, the cookie is Swedish through and through, it is also one of the countries national cookies.

Some fun facts; while commonly referred to as gingerbread here in the States it is also sometimes known in Europe as pepper bread this is impart due to how valuable pepper once was here’s were a little marketing and branding can really sell a product. Back in the 1400’s anything with any spice at all would tend to be labeled pepper even if there was no pepper in it to begin with. It’s why the chili fruit became the chili pepper, you see when Columbus introduced the chili to Isabella the closest thing he could compare it to was, pepper. Horseradish is another spice sometimes referred to as root pepper or pepper root. Ginger also happens to be one of the five categories in the fiery spices the others being the fore mentioned pepper, mustard, horseradish and of course chili peppers

There are several types of cookies such as the ‘drop cookie’, a chocolate chip cookie is a good example of a drop cookie as the name would suggest the cookie dough once prepared is simply scooped out and dropped onto the sheet pan and baked in the oven. The gingerbread cookie on the other hand is a so called ‘rolled cookie’ which is dough that is placed in the refrigerator first to rest before being rolled out and cut into a shape and baked. Knowing this, I cheat doing one thing slightly different, once I have formed my dough it is still very pliable because the butter hasn’t yet settled, I take advantage of this fact and roll the dough out and cut it first before refrigerating it almost like an ‘ice box cookie’ which is cookie dough shaped into a log and refrigerated before being simply sliced into round cookies and baked. 

One last note, some recipes call for egg others call for cream, I am using cream here but if you would like to try it substituting egg, here's a quick reference; 1 large standard egg is equal to one deciliter (dl)

Shopping List

Butter

Heavy cream

Syrup, I use a lighter beet sugar verity   

Bakers or caster sugar

Unbleached all purpose (AP) flour

Baking powder

Ginger

Cloves

Cinnamon

My Mad Method

Ready to enjoy!!

Start by melting 175g unsalted butter; add 200g sugar and 1.5 dl syrup

Transfer to a mixed and add 1.5 dl cream pulse to combine

Add 700g AP flour, ½ to ¾ tsp baking powder, 1 tsp ginger, 1 tsp ground cinnamon, 1 tsp ground cloves and puree to create a cohesive dough

When dough is achieves transfer to a lightly dusted work surface and let rest 10 to 15 minutes

Divide the dough, then roll the dough out about 3 to 5 mm thick, making sure to keep the dough as even as possible, remove or seal any rips or tears

Cut out the shape you like and lay them on a sheet pan that has been covered by greased parchment paper  refrigerate overnight, then bake 8 to 10 minutes or until done in a 225c preheated oven

When they come out of the oven let them cool on a wire wrack

Ready to serve!!

Here’s a shot of some we were baking for the Holidays a couple years back, in total we baked 8,000!