Sanna’s Gingerbread
Wouldn’t you know that as soon as I mention that my oven is broken, one of my evil friends taunts me with a recipe.
Though I haven’t tried it (yet), I’m sharing it here because it’s perfect for the holidays. Also because I’m going to need help with it and all of you Domestic Goddesses can do that!
First she warns: They’re not healthy. No way. They’re yummy, fatty, time consuming and comfortfood – did I mention yummy? (Those are my favorite recipes, dontchaknow.)
~~*~~
Here is Sanna’s Gingerbread:
2½ sticks of butter, assuming they’re 4oz each. (Use REAL butter, real dairy butter, no less than 75% fat!)
1 cup of dairy cream, 40% fat
10oz white sugar
4oz brown sugar
5oz sugar beet molasses (there’s usually white, light and dark – look for the light or dark one)
2 tbs ground ginger
2 tbs ground cinnamon
2 tbs ground cloves
½ tsp ground cardamom
½ tsp ground allspice
2 tbs baking soda (bicarb)
2.5-3 lbs all purpose flour, unbleached
Add the spices, minus bicarb, to a pot (if one likes gingerbread to be a bit stronger, 3tbs of spice is prolly better). Heat the pot for about two minutes. Add butter, so that it melts. Add molasses straight to pot.
Mix the sugars in a big bowl of some sort. Whip the cream smooth in another bowl. Take a third (YES!) bowl and add 2 lbs of flour and the bicarb.
Pour the melted butter-spices-molasses mix in the bowl with sugar. Add about half of the flour. Add the whipped cream. Add the rest of the flour.
Now add more flour if needed. The dough shouldn’t stick to your fingers, be soft but still firm enough to knead.
Cut in four pieces. Curse over the grease getting everywhere. Wrap pieces in plastic, put two in the fridge and two in the freezer. The freezer ones are
so that you won’t need to make more dough once you run out of cookies. Let it rest for several hours or even days. The dough in the fridge will keep at least 14 days. Bake out when you’ve got the time.
Take HALF of one wrapped piece of dough and wrap the rest again. Put it back in the fridge. Quickly do your thing with the cookie cutters and stuff, before the dough melts on you. Add more flour if needed. They should be about 1cm (uuuh… just under ½ inch) thick before going into the oven. Add cookies onto a bakingplate on bakingplate paper.
Bake in the middle of the oven at about 300F, for 7-10 minutes depending on how you like them. Get them off the paper and set to dry on a rack. Store in large tins. Protect them from children, who will devour them before supper.
The recipe should give you about 200-300 cookies, btw. ;) Enjoy!
Merry Christmas
Sanna
~~*~~
She and I then discussed the “sugar beet molasses”, which is something I’d never heard of. I’ve found that sometimes trying to share recipes with people who live in other countries, the language barrier can be a stickler.
Though she did a terrific job changing the measurements for me. I’m only slightly confuddled having to calculate oz and lbs to cups. ;-)
Anyway, here’s what she said about the molasses: I checked it on Wikipedia, and I was wrong about it being molasses. I’m quite sure you can use your regular gingerbread molasses, but the stuff I’m using is called Golden Syrup in the US. It may be hard to find in the US outside of Louisiana, apparently. Do your best, otherwise turn to molasses and adjust the recipe accordingly.
Now, I’ve never heard of gingerbread molasses either. In fact, I’ve never cooked with or used molasses ever. Do we have any molasses experts reading along? Can anyone shed some light upon what that ingredient would be in the states?
Another question would be to verify if the “40% fat dairy cream” is heavy whipping cream? Or is it milk? I’m assuming it’s heavy cream but again with that language barrier. I want to be sure.
And lastly– 200 to 300 cookies! Holy Cookie Abundance! Any ideas on if the recipe would work just as well being halved?
I can’t wait to try this!
(crossposted to Domestic Servitude)
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Uncategorized | kaya | 
Saturday December 12th, 2009 10:16am
Just from reading this post, I’ve gained 10 kilos. Sigh…they look yummy though!
I think the universe should decide on one measurement system thingy; it would save me hours of converting. ;)
Whipping cream is 38% fat up here, so I’m guessing that’s what the recipe calls for. (Okay, according to Wikipedia you guys have light and heavy whipping cream? Go for heavy, or double cream if you can find it.)
I’m pretty sure cane molasses can be substituted for sugar beet molasses, but blackstrap molasses can’t be used as a substitute. Unless I’ve got my head waaaay up my ass, that is.
Now I want scones with clotted cream. Dammit.
[rq=1488974,0,blog][/rq]Thursday Shouldn’t Even Start
Hee. I baked out half of it yesterday, and we agreed (me and M) that about a 100 of ½ an inch thick cookies is preferable to the 200-300 thin ones. It does increase the cooking time to just about 10 minutes, though.
Ah yes. Heavy cream would be the same as the “40% dairy cream” I mentioned in the recipe. The important part is that you can whip it, that it’s pure dairy cream and that it contains nothing but cream. We’ve got 38% and 27% cream here too, but they often have stabilizer in them, which I’d rather avoid.
I wouldn’t half the recipe, personally. I’d just stick half of the dough in the feezer for later. ;)
This is why I love your site, makes me think…
Ok, here is what I found:
Beet sugar molasses is not fit for human consumption because it is too bitter. Beet sugar molasses is fed to dairy cows and cattle. The syrup is added to their food to make it taste sweeter. The beet molasses is also sold to yeast-making industries (1).
(from this site: http://www.vrg.org/journal/vj97mar/973sugar.htm
Cloe, dont go there…
I am guessing that our location in the world is why…
Per Wikipedia
Substitutes: (for sugar beet molasses)
Cane molasses is a common ingredient in baking, often used in baked goods such as gingerbread cookies. There are a number of substitutions that can be made for molasses. For a cup of molasses, one of the following may be used (with varying degrees of success): 1 cup of honey; ¾ cup of firmly packed brown sugar; 1 cup of dark corn syrup; 1 cup of granulated sugar with ¼ cup of water; or 1 cup of pure maple syrup.
I copy and pasted some things I found, because I plan to try this out too, and so, ya know, I had to know! I am thinking that just plain old molasses will work, and thats what I am going with…
~twisted
You may be able to find Golden Syrup in a store that carries imported foods. (Look in the British section.) I’ve seen it in World Market and some grocery stores.
[rq=1490217,0,blog][/rq]TMI Tuesday #188
Oh those cookies look so good.. It’s too bad I’m dutch – I don’t know half the ingredients or what oz or lbs mean. Oh well, I’ll google them :D.
Here’s a translation into metric, with Google Translator, I changed the stuff into Dutch. I hope that helps.
350g boter
3dl Slagroom
300g suiker
100g bruin suiker
150g siroop
2 eetlepel gember
2 eetlepel kaneel
2 eetlepel kruidnagel
½ theelepel kardemom
½ theelepel piment
2 eetlepel bicarbonaat
1.2-1.5kg meel
Hee. It looks funny in Dutch. *snicker* Sorry.
Oh see that makes sense!!! Yay, thanks so much :D.
I’m guessing you guys have treacle?
You can substitute treacle for the golden syrup, and if you can get dark treacle, even better :)
P.S I’ve always put molasses in animal feed…can’t say I’ve ever cooked with it :)
[rq=1492071,0,blog][/rq]For hire
YUMMY!
Likely wont get to these this year.. but they do sound delicious~!
The brand of Golden Syrup (absolutely yummy on English muffins with butter, BTW) that you’ll find imported to North America is called Lyle’s. In Canada you’ll find it in a green tin, glass jar or (slightly thinned down for easier pouring) a plastic squeeze bottle. In the US I’ve only seen it in the traditional green tin. A tin (which I believe holds about a pound) will run you about $6.
It’s not at all hard to find in Seattle. Nearly every grocery store that I go to stocks it right in the regular maple/fruit syrup/pancake mix section. Lyle’s also makes treacle (in a red tin) but that’s harder to find.- I only see it in super-fancy grocery stores in my area.
Now. Depending on which you use, your results will be noticeably differnt. If the amount of the syrup/molasses was larger in proportion to the rest of the ingredients, the resulting cookies would be night and day from one another. However, 5 oz versus all that flour, butter, etc is so little that the difference will be subtle. Golden syrup will give the dough a honey-like flavor and won’t affect the color in any way. Molasses will make the dough darker and give it more depth and will kind of beef up the spices in the flavor profile. You can also use dark corn syrup but it won’t give your dough that extra complexity.
Aww, Chrissy said what I was gonna say. All of it. I guess I need to get here earlier next time. Yumm, I want to make this now.
OR have Lyle’s Golden Syrup on toast for breakfast.
sin
[rq=1505989,0,blog][/rq]Anticipation
Okay, I hate gingerbread cookies. (bite me, hee!) Have always hated ginger cookies. But…for my family i make them just this time of year. Your recipe is intriguing. Cardamom? kewl. that’s a new twist.
nilla is gonna brag now…yesterday i baked (no exaggeration here!) over 25 dozen cookies. I had made the dough ahead and froze it into balls (ch.chip and reverse cho.chip, and sugar cookies pre cut into holiday shapes). Babygirl and I made pnut butter dough yesterday (note: it takes a nearly 3 year old and mommy and hour to make dough together. sigh) and baked them too. I should put up pix on my blog. tomorrow. all the “Marthanity” came out in me…the sugar cookies look faboo! Brag brag brag! Hee!
[rq=1507781,0,blog][/rq]Patience
Golden syrup is used in Australia all the time… I really dont like mollasses, its stronger in flavour and darker. Golden Syrup is more honey like and sweeter.
As for the cream, use cream as in the stuff that is NOT milk. I know in the USA “creamer” is what we call “milk” here. The receipe means “cream” as in “whipping cream” the stuff you would put on a pavolova (only not the squirty tin stuff, the stuff in a carton).
Not making much sense here, but the ginger bread men look fab. Hope that helps (But you have prolly already made them by now)!
rosie
[rq=1519032,0,blog][/rq]Hangover
No baking for me this year…but I will tell how I have fun with gingerbread.
I use mini cutters. We all call them gingerbabies. They pop right in your mouth all at once. Friends and family have much fun with thing like…. Grabbing the bowl of gingerbabies away from someone yelling “No No not my babies!!!” The kids looking even as they grab a handful going “nom nom nom i love babies” Yip..much fun.
looking evil…looking evil I am so not awake