Gingerbread "Arkhangelsk kozuly". Kozuli: a recipe for traditional New Year's gingerbread
Christmas is the time for gingerbread. It was gingerbread that was baked for Kolyada, and with the advent of Christianity in Rus', for Christmas. These gingerbreads even have a special name - kozuli or Arkhangelsk gingerbread.
Some researchers associate the funny word "roe" with the Pomeranian word - kozulya, which meant a snake or a curl - after all, gingerbread was molded from folded flagella or painted with curls.
In principle, you can use any gingerbread dough. I like the traditional dough of the Arkhangelsk roe in the author's version of Victoria Bradis.
Ingredients:
Sugar - 500 g.
Water - 200 ml. (boiling water)
Butter - 200 g.
Cinnamon - 1.5 tsp
Nutmeg - 1 tsp
Ginger - 1 tsp
Cardamom - 0.5 tsp
Allspice - 0.5 tsp
ground cloves- 0.5 tsp (or white pepper)
Honey - 2 tbsp. liquid or 1 tbsp. with a slide of non-liquid - optional
Soda - 1 tsp
Salt - to taste
Egg yolk - 1 pc.
Flour - 700-1000 g.
Powdered sugar - 400-500 g (for glaze)
Dry protein - 14-15 g (1 tablespoon with a slide, for glaze)
Corn starch- 1 tsp (for frosting)
Cooking:
1. Dough.
Melt sugar until liquid. You can start drowning on high heat, but then quickly switch to medium. If it gets too hot, you can take the pan off the heat for a while.
Add boiling water - pour in slowly and very carefully, it will “spit” and may caramelize. Children should not be around at this time!
Add butter. Oil, unlike water, melts without excesses.
Add spices and honey.
At the end, add 1 tsp. soda and some salt.
Leave until completely cool. After we add 1 yolk and mix in the flour - from 700 to 1000 g, how much the dough will take - it should be on the verge that it is about to begin to break up into flakes.
We let the dough rest in the refrigerator for at least a couple of hours, and preferably for a couple of weeks - this allows the flour to better contact, and then it will be elastic during work.
2. Gingerbread.
Roll out the dough to a thickness of about 5 mm. Cut out cookies with cookie cutters or a knife.
Put on a baking sheet and bake. From one batch you will get about 60 medium gingerbread cookies, 8-10 cm in size.
3. We bake:
I love to bake on a Teflon mat. If you are baking on paper, grease it with oil. If on a baking sheet, it is better to grease with oil and sprinkle with flour.
Bake at a temperature of 180 gr. If without air blowing, with heating from above and below - bake for 7 minutes. With air blowing - 6 minutes. If the gingerbread is large, then the baking time can be increased by a minute.
After removing the gingerbread from the pan, you need to turn the gingerbread face down so that it becomes flat. Especially if the dough bubbled during baking - this sometimes happens. If there are a lot of bubbles and they are large, you can even pat the gingerbread to flatten it))))
4. Glaze:
You can buy a ready-made premix - for example, "Alterising". In Belarus, the Fujina fondant is sold - it gives a glossy surface after drying.
You can make the glaze yourself from powdered sugar: 400-500 gr of powdered sugar, 14-15 gr. dry protein (1 tablespoon with a slide), 1 tsp. corn starch.
5. Preparing for coloring:
First you need to decide whether you will draw only the contours on the gingerbread or make large fills too - it depends on how much dry mix you need.
Next - decide on the colors, i.e. what colors will you paint your frosting in. To do this, you will need either food colors (dry colors can be found in regular stores), or natural juices (for example, carrots, beets, etc.).
Tools you will need: pastry bags, nozzles, a 250 ml glass, a tablespoon (preferably two), teaspoons, a bowl for mixing the main part of the glaze and bowls for stirring paints and colored glaze, toothpicks, a needle, towels.
The proportions for mixing the dry mixture and water for pouring and for the contour are as follows.
Fill: Mix 1 cup of glaze mixture + 2.5 tbsp. water. You can mix both manually and with a mixer at a minimum speed of 2-3 minutes.
Readiness: The mixture will turn from grayish to white. You should get the consistency of thick sour cream, the peaks immediately blur. (If you pull with a spoon, or drip from above, there will be a hill. Such a hill is called a peak. To fill the peaks, they must be absolutely unstable, i.e. they will immediately spread). If the mixture is too thick, dilute it a little with water.
Circuit: It is needed to limit the fill or to draw only with a path.
We obtain by mixing the filling and the dry mixture in the proportion: 1 part of the filling + 0.5 parts of the dry mixture.
Readiness: there are peaks, but they are unstable - i.e. the contour may be slightly blurred.
Dry dyes: Dry dyes must first be dissolved in water. Dilute 1-2 coffee spoons of dye and a drop of water. You can change the proportions - from this there will be a different color intensity.
After the dye has been thinned - it can be added to the fill or outline - note that even this little water can affect the consistency of the fill and outline, you may need to add a little dry mixture again.
If you immediately diluted a large amount of glaze, you can keep it from drying out by covering it with a wet towel.
Filling is poured directly into a pastry bag, she does not need a nozzle. They poured it inside the bag, and tied it from the open side. When the time comes to pour this color, you will only need to cut off the sharp tip of the bag and fill the gingerbread.
The contour bag is cut off approximately 1-1.5 cm from the sharp edge. A nozzle is inserted inside, which is fixed with a latch. The contour is too thick to be poured, so it must be transferred to the bag with a spoon. Tie up the bag. You can work without a nozzle, but then a thin line, most likely, will not work - the bag is too soft, and with a narrow outlet it will “spit” and give out unequal portions of glaze. But even with a thick line, cute gingerbread cookies are obtained)))
6. Painting
Option 1- with filling.
Draw a contour around the edges of the product. Make a fill - a toothpick will help stretch the fill from the center to the corners.
If you pour 2 colors on the gingerbread at once, a toothpick will help to mix them interestingly.
Option 2- contour drawing on the gingerbread.
Lubricate the surface of the gingerbread with syrup (dissolve powdered sugar or sugar in a small amount of water) - so that a sticky surface forms on the gingerbread after drying - then the contour will stick to the gingerbread and will not fall off.
After the sugar layer has dried, apply the contour.
The frosting will dry out very quickly. Literally after a couple of minutes, a crust will begin to form on the filling of the gingerbread. After about half an hour, a second layer of the pattern can be applied to the dried fill. But finally the gingerbread will dry up only after about 4 hours. Drying speed will be faster in a dry room. You can also use a hairdryer.
To make a gingerbread house, make blanks from the dough and bake them. The dimensions of the blanks can be arbitrary or, for example, such as.
Draw the outline first.
Fill, let dry, and, if necessary, apply a second stop of the pattern.
Use the outline to assemble the house. Walls first.
Then facades.
Secure with one more layer of contour.
Collect the details of the roof on the tape. Attach the roof to the house using the outline. Or just wear it.
The house is ready!
7. Hints:
The contour may begin to dry out in the nozzle and stop extruding well - clean the tip with a needle.
Bubbles formed in the filling - they can be pierced with a needle.
It is better to have a towel handy to wipe the tip of the bag.
A confectionery bag can be replaced with a plastic bag, a file, and even a cornet - roll the packaging film for flowers into a bag and secure with tape. The cornet holds its shape pretty well, and you may not need metal tips when using it, even if you make a very thin line.
The filling can be left in the refrigerator until tomorrow. Even in a bowl in which they were bred - you just need to wrap it in a wet towel and a plastic bag.
But! The glaze left “until tomorrow” begins to delaminate. White - less, color - more. Therefore, at least mix before use. And ideally - mix with a portion of the new glaze.
You can sprinkle various confectionery toppings on the uncured glaze.
As a pattern for drawing, you can use patterns for embroidery :)
Gingerbread cookies for you were baked and photographed by Alexandra Skorikova. Other my handmade gingerbread in the online store
Almost unchanged Pomeranian roes have survived to our time, these traditional small gingerbreads have been baked by the inhabitants of Pomorie for many centuries. It is assumed that the settlement of the White and Barents Seas took place in the 9th-11th centuries, where the people were formed for a long time. These "persistent tin soldiers" lived a special way of life and everyday life, retained the pagan faith for a long time, believed in spirits, intrigues of evil spirits .... On Christmas Eve, Pomeranian roe deer, funny small figurines of animals and birds were baked from rye flour.
Pomeranian roes all year (until the next Christmas) served as a talisman against evil forces, because it was believed that they have a positive impact on people's lives. Contribute to fishing, family well-being, health of people, livestock, birds, keep happiness in the house .... Traditionally, unleavened rye gingerbread dough was kneaded from coarse rye flour and water. Kneaded (rolled) the owner of the house, which had a certain ritual meaning. In addition, the kneading process is long and requires a lot of physical effort. The dough rolled up with a poleshka should stand without bending. Incorrect kneading led to cracking of the Pomeranian roe.
Men and women participated in the molding of Pomeranian gingerbread, and children learned the art of rolling roes. Entire herds of different animals: deer, cows, hard-horned sheep, seals, elks, birds, went to the Russian stove. Pomeranian roes sculpted with prayers and sentences, people seemed to endow gingerbread animals with the ability to protect and protect. Each small figurine had a certain semantic meaning, for example, a deer with intertwined horns is a symbol of faith, hope, love, a cow brought prosperity, a bird with chicks on its back personified the happiness of motherhood
Most often, Pomors sculpted deer, which, depending on the shape of the horns, had different semantic meanings. There were deer of friendship, health and longevity, spiritual protectors, deer of love and warmth. Ritual gingerbread cookies were given to relatives, loved ones, neighbors, children played Pomeranian goats, the owners gave gifts to carolers who went from house to house with good wishes. The girls guessed on the Pomeranian roes, treated the guys. Few little protectors were left until next Christmas, with the aim of protecting the home and family from misfortune. For a while, Pomeranian roe became members of the family and received names: Chernukha, Belyanka ...
There were bread figurines next to the icons, which proves the importance Pomors attached to ritual baking! Broken and old gingerbread cookies were never thrown away. Bread figurines were fed to cattle, in hungry years they could eat themselves. This simple Pomeranian gingerbread is a toy, a delicacy and a charm that protects a person from various misfortunes and misfortunes. Each region baked different roe deer differing in shape, were Terek, Mezen, Kargopol, Kholmogory. These Pomeranian roes are made from rye dough (peasant).
Arkhangelsk aristocratic roes painted with glaze, white flour, burnt sugar, cinnamon, cloves. Pomors added juices of northern berries to give different colors of sugar icing. Men also participated in the preparation of the Arkhangelsk ritual gingerbread. They kneaded the dough, bent from iron the contour forms of figurines of animals, birds… Flat Pomeranian roe deer were cut out of the rolled out dough with molds. Decorated fragrant beautiful gingerbread with the whole family. Now Pomeranian roe deer have lost their ceremonial magical significance, although they still remain a good gift.
Since ancient times, people baked various sweets for the holidays. For a birthday - a cake, for Easter - Easter cakes, for a wedding - a loaf. But at Christmas they baked roes.
What are these sweets?
Kozuli are traditional Christmas cookies made from rye or wheat flour. Most often it was made in the form of a goat, horse, sheep, cow, deer. The goat has always been considered a symbol of wealth and prosperity in the home, and making cookies in the shape of this animal symbolized prosperity.
On Christmas holidays, all relatives, friends, neighbors and caroling children received roe biscuits for treats. The recipe for such sweets was inherited. In each family, roes were baked with their own “zest”. After all, not only people were treated to Christmas cookies, but they were also fed to pets. People believed that after that the cattle became very prolific. In addition, roes were hung in a stable or barn as a talisman, and also used for divination on Epiphany evening.
Goat biscuits. Recipe one
For cooking you will need:
- 5 cups sugar (in dough and glaze);
- 2.5 glasses of water;
- 3 eggs (in the dough);
- 5 yolks (in the dough);
- 2 squirrels (in glaze).
- 1/2 teaspoon salt;
- 2 tablespoons of soda;
- 2-3 tablespoons of spices (cloves, ginger, nutmeg, cinnamon);
- 2 drops of vinegar essence (in glaze);
- 1.8-2 kg of flour.
Preparation of dough and making goats
On low heat in a thick bowl (preferably a heavy-bottomed pan), melt 2 cups of sugar (until brown). Then slowly pour in 1.5 cups of boiling water. The water in the bowl should boil strongly and steam. It is better not to lean low over the pan so as not to burn your face. It is necessary to constantly stir the mass with a wooden spoon. Dissolve everything in Add the same amount of sugar (2 cups), stir and let it dissolve completely. Next, you can remove the syrup from the heat and add 350 g of margarine (butter). Pour the whole mass into a large saucepan and let cool.
While the syrup is cooling, beat 5 yolks and 3 whole eggs in a separate cup (as for an omelette). Pour the egg mixture into the cooled syrup. Add salt, spices (you can taste) and soda. Sift the flour, then gradually pour into the sugar mixture. Flour should be poured in the way the roe deer recipe requires, even if the dough seems liquid. Otherwise, the products will be rigid. Put the finished dough in a cool place for one day.
After the allotted time, roll it out about a centimeter thick and cut out your favorite figures (you can make the necessary templates in advance). You need to bake products at a temperature of 180 degrees.
Glaze
And for the goats? We will now consider the recipe for its preparation. First you need to beat two proteins into a tight foam. Make syrup from a glass of water and sugar. Remove the boiling syrup from the heat and pour the egg whites into it. Beat with a mixer until thick (15-25 minutes). At the end, pour in the essence. If you want, you can add dye. After that, you can decorate the finished roes with icing.
To make the cookies soft and tasty, it is better to make them large and not very thin. And most importantly, do not overdry the dough in the oven! Then you get real, "magic" Christmas roes, the traditional recipe of which is now known to you!
Other products
They also bake roe gingerbread. What are these products and where did they come from? Gingerbread appeared in the north of Arkhangelsk. In those ancient times, they were baked only for New Year and Christmas. They cut out gingerbread in the form of figures of animals, birds, an angel, a Christmas tree, houses, a Christmas star or a sleigh. The recipe for roe deer was passed down from grandmothers to mothers and has come down to this day. There are also separate family forms of roe deer, both ancient and new, modern.
The northerners believed that roes attract good luck. If, for example, a young girl herself makes a gingerbread and gives it to a single guy, then soon she will definitely become a bride. But it was customary to give the largest roe to the whole family for happiness. She was considered a guardian. Most often, roes were baked in the oven. But in the 30s of the past century, they began to use a different method: before putting the figurine in the oven, they began to lower it for a couple of minutes in boiling water in order to preserve the shape of the gingerbread.
The main secret of making roes is to make the dough with love, in a good mood and without haste. It is best to start kneading in the late evening, before going to bed.
gingerbread dough
And what about goats? Its recipe is clear to everyone. For cooking you will need:
- 2-2.5 kg of sifted flour;
- two eggs;
- a pack of margarine or butter;
- a tablespoon of soda slaked with vinegar;
- spices to taste (cloves, ginger, cinnamon);
- 3-4 cups of sugar.
Cooking
Glaze for goats. Recipe
First, we’ll tell you how it’s done. You need to carefully beat one protein. Next, you need to gradually add powdered sugar (a glass) and a few drops of lemon for shine. Pink glaze is prepared as follows: first you need to separate a little white glaze and drop raw beet juice into it, and then mix until a uniform shade.
Gingerbread cookies can be decorated with a brush, match, stick or pastry bag. Everything depends on fantasy. It is better not to fill products with glaze, but to draw intricate New Year's patterns. The glaze recipe can be slightly diversified by adding carrot juice, cocoa or dyes to the cream.
Third recipe
Of course, these are not the only roe gingerbreads. The recipe for another magical pastry will help cook such sweet products a little faster. For cooking you will need:
- sugar - 800 g;
- glass of water;
- margarine (butter) - 150 g;
- spices (cinnamon, cloves);
- soda - a teaspoon;
- 3 eggs;
- flour.
Cooking gingerbread
Melt one glass of sugar on fire and dissolve it in a glass of hot water. After pour two more glasses of sand and stir until dissolved. Remove from heat and put butter (about 150 g), a teaspoon of cinnamon and soda into the syrup. Cool and add one egg and two yolks. After pour 0.5 kg of flour and knead a stiff dough. Keep it in a cold place. After adding another half a kilogram of granulated sugar and roll into a layer 50 mm thick. Cut out animal figures and place on a sheet greased with oil.
Spread the gingerbread with egg and water and put in the oven. Bake for about 7 minutes. Finished products must dry.
How to prepare in this case the glaze for goats? The recipe is almost the same as usual. For cooking you will need:
- two proteins;
- powdered sugar;
- dye or juice of berries and vegetables.
Whisk two egg whites and icing sugar (5-7 tablespoons) to a stiff peak. Add or juice of cranberries, beets, blueberries, lingonberries, carrots. Mix well until smooth. Dye should be added until the desired color is obtained. After you can decorate the gingerbread with icing.
Conclusion
Many do not even suspect that there are such delicious and unusual roe gingerbread. Some have seen or tried this pastry, but did not know its name. Now you understand how to make real Christmas roes, the recipe of which is presented in the article, which means that you yourself can not only try, but also bake these amazing figurines. Children love them the most. After all, gingerbread is so similar to fairy-tale toys that bring joy and faith in a miracle on New Year's Eve. And, by the way, there is no such holiday when it would be impossible to decorate the dinner table with gingerbread goats! Whatever recipe for roes you choose, bake them with love, kindness and faith in the best! Dare - and everything will work out for you!
Cuisine: Russian
Description: Roe- ritual cookies made from wheat or rye flour, most often in the form of sheep, cows, horses.
Roe deer were presented to carolers, relatives, to increase fertility, they were fed to livestock, used as a talisman for a barn and stables.
In addition, roes were used for Christmas divination. One of the carols sounds like this: "We don't care about green wine, And we don't care about drunken beer, We don't care about Christmas goats." For the competition "New Year's Tastes of the Planet".Ingredients for "Kozuli":
Sugar (in the dough - 4 stacks; in the glaze - 1 stack.) - 5 stacks.
Water (boiling water in the dough - 1.5 cups; in the glaze - 1 cup) - 2.5 cups.
Egg (in the dough) - 3 pcs
Egg yolk (in the dough) - 5 pcs
Egg white (in glaze) - 2 pcs
Salt (in the dough) - 0.5 tsp.
Soda (in the dough) - 2 tsp
Spices (in the dough - cinnamon, cardamom, ginger, nutmeg, ground cloves) - 2-3 tbsp. l.
Vinegar essence (in glaze - 2 drops)
Flour - 1.6-1.8 kg
Recipe "Kozuli":
I cooked half the portion and quite a lot of goats came out.
In a thick-bottomed pan over low heat, melt 2 stacks until brown. granulated sugar.
When all the sand has melted, very carefully, pour 1.5 stacks in small portions. steep boil. We do not bend over the pan - it will hiss strongly, boil and let off steam. Stir constantly with a wooden spoon. We dissolve everything until smooth.
Add 2 more stacks. sugar and again, stirring, dissolve the sugar in the syrup.
As soon as this happened, remove from heat and add 400 g of margarine. We mix. The melted margarine will float on top of the sugar syrup - no big deal.
Pour the mass into a deep saucepan, cool.
In the meantime, shake 3 eggs and 5 yolks in a cup, as for an omelet.
Pour the eggs into the cooled sugar mass. Add 0.5 tsp. salt and 2-3 tbsp. spicy mixture consisting of cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, cardamom and ground cloves. In general, the ratio given in the recipe is 2:1:1:1:1. But you can mix according to your taste. I love cinnamon and added more.
We also add 2 tsp of soda there.
Gradually adding the sifted flour, knead the dough. It may seem to you that the dough requires more flour, but you should not add too much - otherwise the goats will come out tough.
When the dough stands, it will stop sticking to your hands, it will look like sweet and fragrant plasticine :-)
We leave the kneaded dough for one day in a cool place. But my dough stood only overnight on the windowsill.
The next day, roll out the dough with a thickness of 0.5-0.7 cm and cut out the figures.
You can use standard hearts, diamonds, stars. Or you can cut out figures from cardboard and, lightly applying them to the dough, cut the dough with a sharp short knife.
I decided to make a house. Having previously drawn a template on cardboard.
We give the wall texture - we make "bricks". Cut out the door.
We bake at 180-200 * C until cooked.
Ready for frosting.
Whisk two egg whites into stiff peaks.
From 1 stack. sugar and 1 stack. boil water syrup. When the syrup boils, remove it from the heat, pour the whipped squirrels into it. I was afraid that the squirrels would boil, but nothing like that happened :-)
Beat immediately with a mixer. Beat for a long time, until thick. I whipped for 12-15 minutes. At the end, add 2 drops of vinegar essence.
You can also just beat the whites with sugar.
If required, add dye and decorate our baked roes through a funky.
Here they are - goats!
Happy drinking :-):-)
P.S. It is better to make cookies that are not small in size, do not roll thinly and do not overexpose in the oven, then the cookies will be soft. And then I was too lazy to pull out the last baking sheet with cookies after turning off the oven, so they became harsh.
If you sprinkle a little powdered sugar on top of the white icing, then after a while the icing will be covered with a thin crispy crust, and inside it will be creamy :-)
The northern roe gingerbread appeared in the Arkhangelsk Solombala, a region of artisans. In those distant times, roes were baked only on the biggest holidays - Christmas and New Year. For a long time it was believed that the goat brings good luck. For example, people believed that if a girl bakes a goat herself and then gives it to a young man, then next year she will definitely get married. A big goat was given immediately for the whole family. It was believed that she would bring good luck to the house, become his amulet.
During holy weeks, "roes" were put on the windows of huts, they were presented to relatives and carolers, especially children, to ensure well-being in the house, they were attached to the gates of the barnyard so that the cattle would multiply and not be lost in the summer in the forest.
Kozuli were most often baked in an oven, but back in the 30s of the 20th century, a more archaic method was encountered: a figure fashioned from dough was dipped in boiling water for several minutes to preserve its shape, and only then put into the oven.
Patterns for gingerbread
Kozuli: a recipe for New Year's gingerbread
Stages of making New Year's Arkhangelsk gingerbread.
There are a lot of recipes for making Arkhangelsk gingerbread - kozul. I will share the one that our family uses and that my mother taught me. I participated in the manufacture of roes from early childhood - at first I painted the roes baked by my mother, and now, as an adult, I took over from my mother and bake them myself for every new year. This is our kind northern family tradition, and I will be glad if it enters your families and fills the new year with the feeling of an unforgettable magical winter fairy tale!
Making New Year's Arkhangelsk gingerbread is a very lengthy process that includes three stages:
- Test preparation.
- Bakery.
- Decorating baked gingerbread with icing.
Each of these stages cannot be done in a hurry or in the course of ordinary affairs - nothing will work out. Your mood will be reflected in the quality of the gingerbread. Before the start of each stage, you need to smile, get rid of unnecessary thoughts and worries, fully concentrate on this creative process, and be in a peaceful state during the creation of the gingerbread. For example, silently - to yourself - read prayers or pronounce good wishes to those people to whom you will give gingerbread. Then the roes will bring only joy, health and happiness. And your reward will be the smiles of those to whom you give them, as well as the unique taste and beauty of the resulting gingerbread, harmony and peace in your home.
Make the dough when no one will bother you or distract you - in our family it was always late in the evening when the children were sleeping. The dough is made by adults without the participation of children, as this process is very difficult and requires accuracy and accuracy. But cutting out roes with the help of molds and decorating them with icing is something that we can do together with the children as a family!
First stage. We make dough for goats.
To make the test you will need:
- 3-3.5 cups of granulated sugar, a glass of chilled boiled water, about 2 kg of flour (it must be sifted through a sieve), a pack of 200-250 gr. butter or high-quality creamy margarine (better done in butter), 2 eggs, 1 tbsp. baking soda slaked with vinegar, spices for gingerbread (ground cloves, cinnamon, ginger, coriander).
How to make dough:
Step 1. Pour 2-2.5 cups of granulated sugar with 1 cup of chilled boiled water and put on a small fire. Cooking syrup.
Cut butter into small pieces.
Step 2 At the same time, on another burner in a metal saucepan, burn 1 cup of granulated sugar until brown. Do this over low heat with constant stirring. It is best to stir either with the handle of a metal spoon or with a knife (so that the sugar does not stick). Sugar will first melt to a brown liquid, then foam will appear, it will boil and smoke. Let it boil a little, turn off the burner and immediately go to step 3.
Step 3 Pour the burnt sugar into the syrup in a thin stream with constant stirring with a spoon of the resulting mixture. We do this very slowly and carefully, without haste.
Step 4 Add the chopped butter to the resulting mixture and mix until a homogeneous liquid is obtained. We put to cool on the balcony or outside the window.
While the mixture is cooling to a warm state in the cold, soak the dishes, otherwise the sugar will harden and it will be difficult to wash it. And then we prepare the dough.
Step 5 Put spices to taste in another large saucepan. We usually put two tablespoons of spices: 1 tbsp. l. ground cinnamon and 1 tbsp. ground cloves. We buy whole cloves and grind them ourselves immediately before preparing gingerbread - it turns out to be more fragrant than ready-made ground cloves sold in stores. You can use other spices - ginger, coriander or a ready-made mixture of spices for gingerbread.
Step 6 We put 1 tablespoon of baking soda in the same pan (extinguish it with vinegar).
Step 7 Beat 2 eggs with a mixer or whisk. Add to the same pot.
And then pour the warm liquid into this pan, which in step 4 we put in the cold to cool. Mix everything thoroughly.
Step 8 Test batch. We start adding flour to the pan. We note the time on the timer, since it takes at least an hour to knead. Be sure to sift the flour through a sieve before kneading. Add flour in very small portions, mix with a spoon or mixer. It is difficult to predict how much flour will be needed, you need to feel it - but about 1.5-1.8 kg.
When the dough becomes tight enough, we begin to knead it not with a mixer, but by hand. We knead exactly one hour. If even after half an hour it seems to you that the dough is ready, continue to knead it anyway. Incorrectly made dough will crack when baking. When kneading, we put our positive thoughts into our living dough, say good wishes to ourselves to those people who will eat these gingerbread cookies, read prayers - that is, we do everything that will help you bring yourself into a state of calm, joy and gratitude to the world, nature, gratitude to their family and loved ones.
Kneading the dough requires great physical effort, so men have been involved in this business for a long time.
After an hour of thorough kneading of the dough, you will get a beautiful loaf of uniform dense consistency. It looks like wet clay with a silky glossy surface that is very pleasant to stroke with your hand. The dough should not stick to your hands. We wrap the dough in a bag, tie the bag and put the dough in the refrigerator on the bottom shelf. The dough should lie in the cold for 2 weeks. If you did not have time to make the dough in advance, then let it lie in the cold for at least a day.
Small addition: my mother did not have and does not have a clear initially set proportion of products in goat dough - she “felt” it (like my grandmother) and did a lot “by instinct”. For example, sometimes I put not 2 eggs in the dough, but 3 eggs. And soda took 3/4 teaspoon. Flour sometimes took 1.5 kg, sometimes 1.8 kg - this was not measured by weights. and was determined by its consistency. But this is already "aerobatics" for which experience in baking roes is needed. At the initial stage, it is better to make the dough according to the same recipe many times.
Second phase. We cut out the goats from the dough and bake.
For baking gingerbread you will need: molds or cardboard templates for cutting figures, rolling pin.
You can download 65 ready-made templates for gingerbread for free in the article "Stencils for gingerbread" on my website "Native Path" -. And also in this article you can visit the gingerbread ball and see the real northern roes of fabulous beauty.
Step 1. We take out the dough in advance from the cold and put it for 8-12 hours to warm up at room temperature.
Step 2 We cut pieces from the dough and roll them with a rolling pin into layers about 5 mm thick, no more.
Step 3 According to a cardboard template or using ready-made shapes, we cut out the figures. We put large figures in the center of the layer, small ones on the sides. We try to arrange the figures so as to use the entire area of \u200b\u200bthe dough layer.
Step 4 We bake the roes in the oven at a temperature of 180 degrees for about 5 minutes (the exact time depends on the characteristics of your oven).
How do you know if the gingerbread is baked?
- If the gingerbread after 5 minutes of baking has the color of creamy toffee, then it is not ready yet, and you still need to keep it in the oven for another 2 minutes. If the gingerbread after 5 minutes of baking has a brown color of milk chocolate, then they are already ready and you can take out of the oven.
- It should be noted that the gingerbread cookies that you take out of the oven will be slightly soft, but at the same time ruddy. Gingerbread will still ripen - dried in the air during the day. And then they become more solid. Place the baked gingerbread cookies on a hard surface - let them lie down for a day.
- In my modern oven, it takes 7 minutes to bake at 180 degrees with ventilation, and not 5 minutes - like in my mother's oven. Here you need to try and notice the specific “Your” time and write it down for yourself in the future in the recipe for roes.
- If the gingerbread cookies are overexposed in the oven, then in a day they will become hard as a stone. If they are underexposed in the oven, then the surface of the roe will wrinkle in the future and will look ugly, uneven. Each oven has its own "character" - so be sure to note the time your goats were in the oven when you first baked them. And then for the future, either remember it (if everything works out well), or correct it.
Supplement as an option. In our family, it is customary to bake gingerbread with a matte surface, as I described above. If you want to get gingerbread with a glossy surface, then they must be greased before baking with yolk or yolk, diluted and well mixed with 1 tablespoon of water. My mother sometimes smeared the surface of the gingerbread with one protein. Try different options and choose the one you like best.
Third stage. Decorate the goats with icing.
For the frosting you will need: 1 protein, 1 lemon, 1 raw beetroot, 1 cup of powdered sugar (pre-sift through a sieve). You can buy powdered sugar or make your own from granulated sugar.
Step 1. Beat with a mixer or whisk one egg white. You need to beat very carefully, as poorly whipped protein will give bubbles when decorating the gingerbread.
Step 2 Gradually add powdered sugar to the protein in small portions and continue to beat. It turned out white glaze.
Step 3 Add a few drops of lemon juice to the frosting. Lemon juice is added to give the glaze a shine and a slightly sour taste. White frosting is ready.
Separate ¼ of the icing into a separate bowl and cook the pink icing in it.
Step 4 Preparing pink frosting. To do this, three pieces of raw beets on a fine grater, squeeze out the juice and add a few drops of this juice to the bowl for pink icing. We stir. Add beetroot juice until desired pink color is obtained.
Now food colorings are also added to obtain a variety of glaze colors, but we never use them at home and decorate gingerbread cookies only with traditional colors - white and pink - and only with the use of natural products.
Step 5 We decorate gingerbread.
Children are traditionally involved in decorating gingerbread - from the smallest to teenagers. This is a very exciting creative process!
In northern gingerbread, they usually do not fill the background with icing with spots, but draw patterns on it - straight lines, wavy lines, curls, dots, crosses, zigzags.
You can paint with icing on the surface of the gingerbread using:
A) sticks (from childhood I painted with the reverse sharp end of a wooden brush), often dipping it into the glaze and wiping excess glaze from it with a linen napkin while working,
B) a regular brush for painting with natural bristles.
C) you can pour the icing into a small plastic bag, make a hole in the corner and draw with it like a culinary bag,
D) for thin lines, a wooden toothpick is used,
D) using a ready-made pastry bag for decorating cakes and pastries.
These are the methods we use. Even when I was very small, I never painted on goats with my fingers - this is not customary with us. Little roe children decorate with a stick, putting large dots and drawing large lines. If you draw with your finger, then the roe deer will come out clumsy, slovenly, not ours, not northern ones. If you need to correct something, then we moisten the brush for drawing in a glass of water, remove excess water from the brush with a linen napkin. And we correct the contours of the picture with a wet brush.
Little trick: If you want the icing to turn out snowy, then sprinkle the gingerbread with sugar immediately after painting, when the icing has not yet dried. When the icing has hardened, shake off the sugar. It will turn out a shaggy and fluffy pattern like snow on your goats.
Have fun and enjoy your creativity! And at the end of the article - a little about the history of these gingerbreads from the article by Stepan Pisakhov "About goats"
About goats
“The departing old way of life takes with it the mystery of the origin of the Christmas goats. It has long been started to bake roes for Christmas. But why are they baked for Christmas only? And where does this name - goats come from? These are still questions to this day... Our ethnographers ignored them, apparently because they came to Arkhangelsk in the summer, when there is no roe deer. I will try to say a few words about goats. Maybe someone will respond and it will be possible to find out the beginning of the goats.
The most ancient roes - Kholmogory and Mezen - are made of black dough, sometimes colored with white dough. Kholmogory roes look like deer. A figure on four legs, a head, a bush of branched horns, apples on the horns, birds on the apples, or rather bird wings made of white dough (an apple with wings resembles the image of a winged sun) is molded from the dough. And the whole roe seems to have been transferred from a very ancient pagan world. There seems to be some kind of occult record in this strangely beautiful figure. The size of such a roe is 5-6 inches. Smaller roe deer are made without apples on their horns, but only with birds (birds resemble hands with spread fingers). Roe deer are also baked in a small size - about an inch, simplified according to the drawing, or they try to make them look like a cow, a horse (sometimes with a rider on a horse). Professor Zelinsky noticed in 1913 that these small roe deer are very similar in shape and size to the figures of the Stone Age.
In the Mezen district, in addition to small ones, similar to those of Kholmogory, flat roes are also baked: they roll out the dough into a long ribbon half a pencil thick and roll it with various patterns, sometimes unexpectedly similar to a sacred lotus in a wavy environment resembling radiance. There are also birds on the nest and others.
In the spring of 1914, at my request, the old woman undertook to cook roe deer. She rolled out the threads from the dough and began to fold the drawing, whispering something. I asked: “What, grandmother, are you whispering?” The old woman stopped and said sternly: “Don’t knock down if you need roes.” Whether the whispering of the old woman had anything to do with goats, I do not know. The old woman did not explain. Others responded with ignorance.
In Arkhangelsk, roes are baked from gingerbread dough, cut with iron molds (gingerbread silhouettes) and decorated (cut) with sugar icing, white and colored (usually pink), richly covered with "gold" and "scattering". Forms made of iron, sometimes quite thick, persist for a long time, passing from generation to generation. Questioning managed to establish the age of the forms up to 200 years, but, undoubtedly, there are forms and much older. At El. Pet. P-howl from her mother, grandmother, etc. Also, other masters of kozul have the most ancient drawings that have come down to us. Goat and goat girls often do not know how to draw with a pencil at all, but they will take a stick or a tube with icing and, following the silhouette of a gingerbread, repeating what they have seen and adopted from their elders, they create drawings of amazing beauty.
In 1913 or 1914 I saw a goat deer imitating an eagle at the market of a roe deer. On his chest he has the letter "A" and one stick (Alexander 1). He asked her: “Why do you have the letter “A” on your eagle and one stick? You need "H" and two sticks. And he heard in response: “But because it is necessary. My mother and my grandmother made the letter "A" and one stick - that means it's necessary. And what kind of pointer were you looking for? Forms in confectionery are subject to changes. There, the masters come up with new forms and refine themselves in the intricacy of cutting, little regard for the established patterns.
Roe deer start baking in October. In early December, roe deer appear in bakeries and confectioneries. In mid-December, they fill all the windows and shelves of bakeries and pastry shops. The size of goats is from one and a half to 10-12 inches. Their cost is from a penny to a ruble, and more elaborate confectioners' products cost up to 10 rubles or more.
Roe deer fill the market before Christmas. Roe deer vendors line up and unfold their boxes - they offer buyers a wide choice. A huge number of parcels with goats were sent across Russia and abroad.
Much in the Arkhangelsk province has been preserved from a very deep antiquity. It seems to me that both Kholmogory and Mezen roe deer (and in a number of other counties) are the legacy of the local first settlers. It is possible that the Novgorodians and Muscovites who came here brought gingerbread with them. And from the ancient roe from black dough and from the gingerbread our roe could come to light. But, perhaps, the gingerbread was brought to the North by foreigners and adapted instead of pagan cookies for the Christian holiday.
Drawings of the most ancient forms - a star, an angel, a shepherd, a basket (with gifts), birds, animals close to humans, a Christmas tree, grapes, vases with flowers, a deer with a sleigh, a lion (the lion as the king of beasts, or maybe the influence of English or Norwegian). Later roe deer - Amazon, cab driver, dog with booth, cat. And appeared over the past decades - a steamer, a steam locomotive, a cyclist, an airplane. And after 1920 - a sickle and a hammer and a grandfather with the slogan "Proletarians of all countries, unite!". In 1925, I saw a goat with the image of a new eagle on the market: the shape of the gingerbread is the same as before, only on the chest of the eagle there is a hammer and sickle, the cross is cut off, and on the crown - "RSFSR".
Last year, in 1926, I met N. D. Vinogradov in Moscow, who collected a large and, it seems, the only collection of gingerbread in Russia as examples of folk art. Seeing how N. D. Vinogradov lovingly and attentively treats this type of folk art, I set myself the task of collecting for him as complete a collection of roes as possible. And, perhaps, with the help of N. D. Vinogradov and other efficient people, it will be possible to find out their origin.
From the collection of Pisakhov S.G. Tales, Essays, Letters. / Ser. Russian north. - Arkhangelsk, North-Western book publishing house, 1985.
Another recipe for New Year's gingerbread and gingerbread for the Christmas tree that you can make with your children - you will find in the articles "Gingerbread for the Christmas tree."
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