About the sweetest thing: we are preparing gingerbread Valentines for February 14

Classic paper valentines are gradually becoming a thing of the past. Instead, people are increasingly giving each other gingerbread cookies on February 14th. Beautifully decorated and baked with love, they fill hearts with warmth. Of course, you can always buy themed pastries at the bakery. But the cost of purchased gingerbread for the holidays is often unreasonably high, and the taste leaves much to be desired. We suggest making edible valentines with your own hands - soft, fragrant, beautiful - without any special tools or skills.

How to make gingerbread cookies for February 14th with your own hands?

Some kind of gingerbread has been baked in Rus' for a long time. The baked goods were called honey bread. The name “gingerbread” began to be used later, when recipes with spices appeared - ginger, cinnamon, pepper. Hot seasonings, if used in moderation, add freshness and special warmth to baked goods.

In fact, there are a lot of gingerbread recipes. But the principle of their preparation is approximately the same.

How to make gingerbread cookies for February 14th?

1. Knead the dough. This must be done in advance - 2-3 days before the gift is delivered or earlier.
2. Let the dough mature. It is wrapped in cling film and left in the refrigerator for 1–2 days. This makes it very flexible and the gingerbread cookies soft.
3. Make gingerbread cookies. Roll out the dough to about 1 cm thick, squeeze out the gingerbread cookies into the desired shape and bake for about 10 minutes.
4. Cool and cover with glaze.Next, icing is applied to the cooled gingerbread cookies - a mixture of egg white, powdered sugar and lemon juice. It is often tinted with dyes.
5. Dry on the table. The glaze dries from 40 minutes to 12 hours. It all depends on the thickness of the coating. Often the design is applied in several layers. That's why you need to prepare gingerbread a few days before the holiday.

Gingerbread can be stored for up to a year without losing its flavor or softness. To do this, immediately after preparation, each specimen is placed in a sealed package.

Even if the gingerbread suddenly becomes hard, it can be revived. Place it in a food container with half an apple and an orange peel. Place the tray in the refrigerator, and within a day the softness and freshness will return to the sweet gift.

Necessary materials

Professional confectioners have a whole arsenal of tools for creating beautiful souvenir gingerbread cookies. The most necessary of them:

• Cuttings. Needed to give gingerbread cookies a shaped shape: a heart, a star, a pair of cats or gingerbread men.
• Stencils. They have a certain pattern in the form of slits on transparent plastic. Just sprinkle the stencil with cocoa powder and the outline of the picture will appear on the gingerbread.



• Pastry bag with nozzles. Needed for painting gingerbread cookies. Using a bag with a thin nozzle is the most convenient way to paint with icing.
• Food colorings. The more colorful the gingerbread cookies are on February 14, the brighter and more attractive they look. Confectioners prefer gel dyes.

An airbrush is often used to spray paint. And some masters print pictures on a food printer.

But in order to make beautiful gingerbread cookies just once, you don’t have to run for special tools. You can completely replace them with manual means.

• Children's molds will replace your cuttings. And if a suitable form is not found, you can use a cardboard template. Print and cut out a heart, person, or other shape. Transfer to cardboard. Cut it out. Apply the template to the rolled out dough and trace it with a knife (plastic, pizza, or any convenient one).
• A pastry bag with nozzles can be replaced with a thick bag and the top of a bottle with a spout for paint or medicine (for example, chlorhexidine). You can also make a nozzle from a beer can. You need to cut a square out of it with scissors, roll it into a cone and secure it with tape. It is not recommended to use the package alone. The hole most likely will not withstand the load and will enlarge, leaving a blot on the gingerbread.

The lack of stencils can be compensated in 2 ways:

1. The first is to attach parchment to the desired drawing and trace the contours with a simple pencil. Then turn the paper over and boldly draw translucent lines. Now the drawing can be transferred to the dried glaze (base). Place the bright side of the parchment on the icing and trace the outlines from the reverse side. The pencil will print.



2. The second method is to create a picture and then attach it to the gingerbread. Place the printed drawing on the table and cover it with film. Trace the outline on the film. When the workpiece is almost dry, brush the gingerbread with glaze, carefully separate it from the film and place it on top. Ready!

If you suddenly run out of paint, you can use regular dyeing products. The juice of beets, cherries, currants, and raspberries produces excellent red juice, carrot juice produces orange juice, and turmeric juice produces yellow juice. Brown can be obtained from coffee or cocoa, blue from blueberries or blackberries, green from spinach juice.

Cuttings and stencils for gingerbread cookies are not that expensive - about 90-200 rubles per set.

Recipe for soft delicious gingerbread cookies

The main secret to the softness of gingerbread is a sufficient amount of honey. But it is also important not to overfill them with flour, not to overcook them in the oven, and to roll out the dough thickly.

Follow the recipe:

1. Mix 2 tbsp in a deep container. spoons of sugar (preferably brown - for a caramel flavor), 3-4 tbsp. spoons of honey, 2 teaspoons of ground ginger, 1 teaspoon of cinnamon, a pinch of salt. Place it in a water bath. Heat until sugar dissolves. Stir occasionally.
2. Remove the bowl from the heat. Add 1 teaspoon of baking soda. Don't extinguish it, just stir it lightly. The mass should increase in volume.
3. Add 100 g of softened butter there. It is advisable to leave it in pieces and blend everything with a blender.
4. Beat in 1 chicken egg and stir until smooth. Add 1.5 cups of well-sifted first-grade wheat flour to it. Knead the dough, wrap in film and let rest (20–40 minutes on the counter or 3–36 hours in the refrigerator).
5. Cut a piece of dough and roll out a circle 1 cm thick. Cut out the gingerbread cookies into the desired shape.
6. Bake on floured parchment for 10 minutes at 170–190 degrees.

It is best to focus not on time, but on the appearance of the gingerbread. As soon as they have risen and slightly browned, you can take out the baking sheet.

To make the gingerbread cookies even, immediately lay them out on a flat surface, cover with film, and place a wooden board on top.

Painting gingerbread cookies for February 14

Decorating gingerbread cookies is a truly creative process. Through painting you can express your feelings, emotions, and say important words. How can you paint gingerbread cookies? We have collected interesting ideas:

Stencils for romantic design:

As for the technical side of the issue, everything is simple here. To paint gingerbread cookies, prepare glaze (or icing, in a fashionable way) from 200 g of powdered sugar and 0.5 teaspoon of lemon juice for each white of 1 egg. Beat the egg whites with a mixer, gradually adding powder. At the end, lemon juice is added - it makes the foam stable and shiny.

How to paint a gingerbread (using the example of a heart with an inscription):

1. Add red coloring to the icing and place in a piping bag. Trace the outline of the heart.
2. Fill by adding a little water to the icing. Pipe the icing into the outline and it will spread. You can help a little with a toothpick.
3. After the layer has dried, after about 10 hours, write a wish to your loved one using thick white icing. Draw a pattern of your choice: hearts, twisted frames. Leave the gingerbread for another 10 hours, and then wrap it in a beautiful airtight package.

Perhaps the first time you won’t get the same beautiful gingerbread cookies for February 14th as professional confectioners. But they will be made with love and with your own hands. Such gifts are always valuable. Rest assured that your edible valentines will be appreciated by your loved one, as well as grandparents, children and anyone else you see fit to give them to.