Saturday, December 17, 2011

Gingerbread Cookies



Posted by -colleen

I am a BIG fan of gingerbread cookies but I have never actually made them. My Christmas cut-outs are the fluffy, soft kind which I highly prefer to the crispier versions so that was my mission when looking for a good gingerbread recipe. The title of this cookie seemed to fit the bill so this is the recipe I tried:
http://allrecipes.com/recipe/big-soft-ginger-cookies/detail.aspx


Ingredients:
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons ground ginger
1 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup margarine, softened
1 cup white sugar
1 egg
1 tablespoon water
1/4 cup molasses
2 tablespoons white sugar
Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Sift together the flour, ginger, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves, and salt. Set aside.
2. In a large bowl, cream together the margarine and 1 cup sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the egg, then stir in the water and molasses. Gradually stir the sifted ingredients into the molasses mixture. Shape dough into walnut sized balls, and roll them in the remaining 2 tablespoons of sugar. Place the cookies 2 inches apart onto an ungreased cookie sheet, and flatten slightly.
3. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes in the preheated oven. Allow cookies to cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely. Store in an airtight container.






Modifications? No-it's the holidays and this is not the time for my weird, calorie-cutting experiments. The only thing I left out was rolling the prepared dough in sugar. This wasn't because I didn't want them to be too sweet. I did because I wanted to frost my baked cookies in cream cheese frosting. Oh yeah.

These cookies are awesome. Frosting or not, these are hands-down THE BEST gingerbread cookies EVER! I will be quite surprised if anyone else gets them in my holiday cookie tins.
Thankfully, I also own appropriate gingerbread man cooking-baking attire (thank you Target circa 2008):

Thursday, December 15, 2011

Ginger biscotti with more good things

Posted by - Winnie

**This post was originally written in Hebrew. This is the translated version from google.**



Ginger biscotti
with nuts and raisins
great and healthy snack



Cookies very fast and easy preparation.
hard and crispy I can not stop eating next to a hot drink, drink, cold and without drinking at all

These Hbiskoti story began when I joined the bloggers every month receives a copy of any subject and each makes up his blog entry. So this month the topic is ginger cookies.
gingerbread cookies, country are less familiar, very popular in different countries at this time of year, and are usually no fixed forms.
It was clear to me that these cookies do not want to make, and I have to find a slightly different direction.
And this direction came as a biscotti.
a long time since I made ​​cookies biscotti, cookies, and these actually I really love munchies (as if I do not like cookies?), like something hard and crispy, and do a lot of crumbs that eat them (Hhhh)

Okay, so I started looking for a recipe when I was also clear that I want it with butter.
Why? It's obvious - I'm quite fond of butter, and earlier this week when I bake, I usually bake dairy recipes.
So nice that I decided that rather recipes I saw were all with oil.
Never mind, I said to myself, I just replace the oil with the butter.
Well, I found a recipe that seemed to me and I decided to make.
But ....... Good grief! Selected recipe has only 2 tablespoons of oil.
No kidding, really disappointed. Replace 2 tablespoons of butter fat it does not matter
Aofffffffff cookies earlier this week and will be without butter.
I already try to find another recipe, but ...... Precisely the combination here with nuts and raisins really appealed to me.
Hopefully they'll be successful, I consoled myself, and I began to prepare.
Successful?? Are successful Madddddddddddddddd and I just can not stop munchies them
and when you look at the recipe turns out these Shbiskoti even contain healthy things, and it really was not intentional.
And one last thing - they are very easy and very fast to prepare .

Customer recipe source map , but still I did it some changes

100 g walnuts
50 g oats (not instant)
50 g bran - finely ground oat
flour 225 g
160 g dark brown sugar
½ teaspoon coarse salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
3 / 4 teaspoon ground ginger
2 large eggs
60 ml (¼ cup) Sedan
2 tablespoons oil
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
½ teaspoon nuts - see note
95 g dark or golden raisins

Coating - optional
60 g powdered sugar (½ cup)
¼ teaspoon pure vanilla extract - can also be a lemon
2-3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

Preheat oven to 175 degrees, and look forward to baking paper format
Mfzriim the walnuts / pecans and put in oven for 10 minutes. Remove, let cool and chop coarsely. Put in a small bowl, add the raisins. And set aside.

Mixer bowl mix the dry ingredients.
In a separate bowl mix the egg + oil + Sedan
While mixing the mixer on low speed slowly add the liquid mixture to dry mixture, until everyone is reunited, and if necessary to scrape the sides of the mixer so itchy. Add the nuts and raisins and blend the Union.

Remove the dough and divide in half.
on a floured surface shape each part of a long cylinder and transfer the pattern while maintaining a margin of about 7 -8 cm Between the rollers.



Bake about 30 minutes until golden bolts, and stable to the touch.
Remove and let cool on a grid for about 10 minutes.
lower the oven temperature to 150 degrees, cut the rolls into slices as thick diagonal2 cm, Put back in
Bake for 6-8 minutes on each side until the slices dry.
Remove and cool,

If you want biscotti really hard - let cool in the oven then blown out. I left the oven (turned off) for 20 minutes and then got out and cool J.




Preparation of coating - Mix For thick texture, and with a spoon drip lines on Hbiskoti. Completely dried at room temperature.




Store in a sealed container well. Can be kept so for a few weeks ..

Y source nuts are hazelnuts, peeled and roasted. Although I have in roasted hazelnuts and shelled decided I wanted to actually walnuts.
You can also pecans, and almonds also possible. Or any type of nuts who like, the point to be roasted
do not have to buy Bran - Oatmeal. You can take oats (not instant) have already played this recipe, and grind it in a food processor.
source sweetener is molasses. I changed Seelan.
coating is really not required. The original recipe has milk. I think actually more appropriate lemon. in the past I bought my shopping hazelnut extract so I decided to add it Lbiskoti. This essence is of course not mandatory, but I think definitely adds. and I'll tell you a secret - when I took the essence out I had too drawer walnut extract that I bought and I've completely forgotten I was just using it of course.







Monday, December 5, 2011

Chocolate Gingerbread Men and Women

Posted by - Vivian

This months "Have the Cake" challenge was to make gingerbread men.  While I love ginger cookies, I'm really not a big fan or rolled out gingerbread cookies... they are too dry and hard.  Still, this recipe was rather decent (still not a fan, but almost!) and it had chocolate.  Come on, you know anything with chocolate just has to taste better!  Frost with royal icing, if desired.

Chocolate Gingerbread Men (and women!)
adapted by Vivian 
original By Sydney Mike
Ingredients
3 1/4 cups all-purpose flour, plus
2/3 cup cocoa powder, sifted 
1 tablespoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
2/3 cup vegetable shortening
1/2 cup dark brown sugar, packed
1 large egg, room temperature
3/4 cup unsulphured molasses

Directions:
Position racks in the top & bottom thirds of the oven, then preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
Grease several large baking sheets, then set aside (or cheat like I do and use a Silpat!).
In a large mixing bowl, sift together flour, cocoa powder, ginger, cinnamon, baking soda, salt, and baking powder until spices & coca are evenly distributed, then set aside.
In a 2nd large bowl, & using an electric mixer on medium speed, cream shortening & brown sugar until smooth & airy, about 1 minute. Beat in egg & then the molasses.
Turn off mixer & add prepared flour mixture, then AT VERY LOW SPEED beat just until crumbly bits of dough form, but not until the mass begins to cohere into a ball.
With flour lightly dust a clean, dry work surface as well as your hands. Turn dough out & knead just until it forms a smooth mass, about 30 seconds.Divide into thirds & cover them with a clean kitchen towel.
With flour lightly dust the work surface again & roll one of the thirds to a rectangle about 1/4 inch thick. Flour the dough & a rolling pin only as necessary (I like to use a piece of  Cling wrap on top of the dough to prevent sticking).
Use a large gingerbread-man cookie cutter to cut the dough into the desired shapes, then use a metal spatula to transfer them carefully to the prepared baking sheet(s). Gather any scraps, lightly dust again with flour & roll out a 2nd time, creating additional gingerbread men.
Bake for 4 minutes, then rotate sheets top to bottom & front to back; Bake another 4 minutes, or until cookies feel dry but still are a little soft.
Remove from oven & cool on the baking sheets for 2 minutes before transferring the cookies to wire racks to cool completely.
Keep no longer than 2 days at room temperature, several more days in the refrigerator, OR up to a month in the freezer.
Original recipe: http://www.food.com/recipe/chocolate-gingerbread-men-334306#ixzz1fjGb4r8u

Thursday, December 1, 2011

December Challenge: Gingerbread Cookies

photo from Figi's Gifts

The holidays made me do it!

I've never actually made gingerbread cookies, men or houses. I celebrate Hanukkah so I'm usually stuffing my face with potato goodies and jelly donuts instead of cookies. I love gingerbread cookies so here we go! Feel free to make any version of these that you want, be it a gingerbread man, woman, house or city. Go crazy! If you have a deep dislike for gingerbread cookies, feel free to choose another type of cookies that suits your taste.

Happy Holidays!