100g butter
250g honey
100g brown sugar
Zest of 2 lemons and 2 oranges
500g flour (can be 250g of spelt and 250g of plain flour)
25g baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
2 tbsp. ground ginger (or a mix of ginger & cinnamon, cloves, allspice, star anise, nutmeg or cardamom)
2 large eggs
1 egg yolk mixed with a tablespoon of olive oil to glaze (optional)
Method:
1. Heat up the butter, honey and brown sugar in a medium pan until the sugar and the butter melts. Cool it down to room temperature.
2. Put all the ingredients in a large bowl and add the butter-honey-sugar mixture. Mix it well and rest it in the fridge overnight. Don’t worry if the mixture is still running it will stiffen in the fridge.
3. The next day, preheat the oven to 180 °C. Sprinkle a handful of flour onto a big, clean surface and roll out the mixture with a rolling pin.
4. Cut out Christmas shapes and place them onto a baking sheet. Bake the cookies for about 5-10 mins, until the top gets golden brown. Don’t put them too close to each other as they will spread out a bit.
5. If the cookies come out a bit hard, that is absolutely normal. The more they rest the softer they will get.
Serving suggestions: Use as a gift and place setting for the Christmas table or decorations on the tree.If you would like to decorate the ginger bread cookies with icing, just beat up 1 egg white with 200g icing sugar, a bit of salt and 2 drops of lemon juice until it gets really thick and stiff. Put the mixture in a freezer bag and snip a tiny corner to turn it into an icing bag! and use your creativity to decorate them.
Storage: Store in an airtight container for 2-3 weeks.
