Tropical Zone Gardening: It's the season to be jolly... so there's no... without..., 1 by goofybulb

goofybulb wrote:
I just sent my thesis for corrections to my mentor (Hurray!), so I thought I'd come back and give you the recipe for gingerbread. I might start a batch tomorrow. But tomorrow I'll tell you all about the Day of Ignat, because it is that day when Romanians... neh, you'll find out tomorrow!

So, Gingerbread:
there are slight variations for the gingerbread. In fact, there are two kinds of gingerbread: one kind is the "soft gingerbread", that has a cake consistency. But the one I'll tell you about is always welcome on Christmas (and Easter), as you can have it cut in figurines.

The recipe I have makes a lot, because usually half of it goes away to carolers... I hope it will not be too confusing, but we use grams to measure.

Ingredients:
500g honey
500g sugar (probably before time, this was also honey, but maybe less than 500g...)
200g walnuts
100g aged rum (can be replaced with 3 tbsp rum essence + water to add to volume)
1 tsp bicarbonate
4 eggs
1 kg flour (unsalted!!! I made the mistake the first time I baked something in US - bought the rising flour, has LOADS of salt! So use all purpose, please!)
1 knife-tip black pepper, ground (yeah, many recipes go with these subjective units, but this is an easy one, believe me!)
1 knife-tip salt
2 teaspoons nutmeg, cloves
3 teaspoons cinnamon
50g butter (unsalted - for greasing the pans)

Preparation:
Pour the honey in a clean pot, add the sugar, salt and the spices, and place the pot on the stove, medium-heat. Stir to mix the ingredients. When the sugar dissolved and the mix is hot-hot, pour it into a second pot, where you already placed half of the flour. Stir again (you need a sturdy thing for it, and a little muscle... You can use probably a kitchen robot, I'll try the kitchenaid robot, it should save time and effort) until all flour in the pot is well incorporated, and everything looks like a paste.
Place in a cool place until next day (or at least for a couple of hours).

Next day (or a couple of hours later):
Take the mix to the stove and warm it up a little. In the meantime, add the bicarbonate to the rum to dissolve it a bit. When you can stir again the mix (during cold storage it really hardens!), start adding the rum (+bicarbonate), the eggs one by one (my Mom used to quickly separate the whites and beat them up to foam before adding them, said it made the gingerbread fluffier). Mix to incorporate everything. This should soften the consistency of the mix, to let you add the rest of the flour and the ground nuts. Mix again very well, to incorporate the flour and the walnuts..

Dust a board and a rolling pin, take portions of the mix and roll them so you get half-inch thickness. Cut them in your favorite shapes.Place your shaped gingerbreads on a greased and flower-dusted pan (probably one can replace the grease and dusted with non-stick pans). bake them at 325-350 until browned.

Bon apetit! They get better and soften after a few days, and store very well in tight-lid containers.

Edited to put the nuts back in the preparation.

This message was edited Dec 20, 2008 9:44 AM