It’s the best season for baking where I am and I’m not saying this because Christmas is round the corner. It just happens to be the coolest time of the year and standing in the kitchen with the oven on doesn’t make feel sweaty and miserable. It is a lot cooler and less humid (about 29C in the day, 18C at night and 50% humidity compared to 35C and about 80% humidity in summer!) and of course, Christmas is in the air.
Different parts of the city (If you can think of Panaji as one) is all lit up with lights, shops are selling artificial trees and all the stuff needed to decorate it, and bakeries and pastry shops are full of Christmas goodies. Christmas stars light up porches (as do Diwali lanterns put up in November and still up) late in the evenings and through the night and I have neighbours listening to “Rudolph the red nosed reindeer” and other Christmas songs most mornings. The tourists in town already seem to be ringing in Christmas and the New Year as we can hear strains of party music from the resorts on the weekends.
If all this wasn’t enough, just take a look at food blogs around and there’s a mouth-watering array of cookies and other goodies on display. We don’t celebrate Christmas being Hindus, but I don’t need an excuse to bake and we never need an excuse to celebrate or enjoy good food. So I too, have been on a cookie baking spree last week but just didn’t have the time to post any of it.
I couldn’t let this season pass me by so I decided to post the quintessential Christmas cookie – the Gingerbread Man! “Had I but a penny in the world, thou shouldst have it for gingerbread.” – William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
Apart from the fact that I love anything ginger, the gingerbread man has a special place in our memories. The story of “The Gingerbread Man” used to be one of my daughter’s favourites when she was little and wanted to be read a story. Akshaya used to be very enamoured with the idea of a cookie that came out of the oven, got up and ran away.
(Source: BBC)
Once she discovered the gingerbread man got eaten by a fox at the end, she would ensure that we never got to that part of the book no matter how many times we read the story. We would reach the critical part of the story and she would announce that she didn’t want to hear a story anymore or would decide she was suddenly feeling very sleepy! And this would be the girl who till 5 minutes before, was jumping and yelling “Run, run as fast as you can; you can’t catch me, I’m the Gingerbread Man”!!
I made a gingerbread house last Christmas, but have never made gingerbread cookies before, as most recipes require molasses which I don’t get here and I wasn’t too sure what else to substitute for it. Food bloggers are a very supportive lot and when I asked for advice, Pel told me I could use jaggery which ought to give me gingerbread cookies tasting reasonably close to the real thing. Bindu suggested using date syrup, which I shall once I can get hold of some from Kerala.
I adapted a recipe I found at Taste.com. This recipe didn’t require molasses but had golden syrup on the ingredient list. I substituted honey for that and used jaggery instead of brown sugar. I also left out the egg and added some baking powder instead. For the spice mix I decided to add my own twist and used cinnamon, cloves, black pepper, nutmeg and cardamom which are all not really traditional gingerbread spices.
I can tell you this spice combination is heady, and I’d love to have it bottled. In fact, even though I washed my hands thoroughly after kneading the dough, I still have the faint fragrance on hands as I type this post.
I wanted to make the kind of gingerbread men in my daughter’s story book with black raisin eyes, smile and buttons but didn’t have any. I used this eggless royal icing instead as Akshaya happens to like cookies decorated with it.
And if you want make sure these gingerbread men do not run, just use a skewer to make small holes on top of them as soon as they come out of the oven. Once they cool down you can thread them with ribbon. Should your gingerbread men happen to run away before you can tie them down, I guess you’ll have to console yourself that you just saw some Christmas magic!
You Can't Catch Me, I'm The Gingerbread Man! Egg Free Gingerbread Men
Ingredients
- 100 gm butter , at room temperature
- 1/2 cup jaggery somewhat firmly powdered (or brown sugar) packed
- 1/2 cup honey
- 2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
- 1 tbsp ginger finely grated / powdered dry
- 1/2 tbsp cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp cloves powdered
- 1/2 tsp nutmeg grated
- 1/2 tsp black pepper freshly ground
- 3 pods cardamom powdered ,
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp baking powder
- flour A little extra , to dust
Instructions
- Put the jaggery and soft butter in a bowl and beat, with an electric beater, till pale and creamy. Add the honey and beat till well mixed.
- Sieve together the flour, powdered ginger, the other spice powders, baking powder, baking soda and add to the bowl. Mix this in using the beater on low speed until the dough comes together somewhat.
- Switch off the beater and turn it out onto a lightly dusted work surface. Knead the cookie dough by hand till it is soft and smooth but not sticky. Do not add any flour while kneading, except for lightly dusting your work surface.
- Press the dough into a disc, wrap in cling film and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes. This also makes the dough easier to roll and cut out shapes. You can keep this dough in the fridge for a couple of days before making the cookies.
- When ready, knead the dough to make sure it is smooth. Lightly dust your work surface with flour and roll out the dough till just under 1/4" thick. Keep dusting flour (with a light hand) while rolling out to make sure the dough doesnu2019t stick to the surface or rolling pin.
- Cut out shapes with cookie cutter of size an shape of your choice. Place the cutout cookies on lightly greased baking sheets and bake at 180C (350F) for about 8 minutes or till the cookies turn a light brown in colour. Take them out and let them cool on the sheets for about 3 to 5 minutes and then on racks. The cookies will seem a little soft but they will become crisp once they have cooled completely.
- Store them in airtight containers till ready to decorate. My cookie cutters were small (about 2u201d gingerbread men) so I got plenty of cookies.
I'm Aparna and My Diverse Kitchen is my ovo-lacto vegetarian food blog where you'll find recipes, food stories & photography. I've been blogging since 2007 and believe the kitchen, and the dining table (by extension) is really the heart of a home. 
Loved reading the post.And they look so so cute. My baking all is finished now I am busy planning the menu for the CHristmas eve dinner. That is going to be a hectic two days.
Looks very cute! I think, i’ll follow your recipe this time… for my nieces!
neat…love the cute lttle ginger men!
wow, beautifully done Aparna. My son wants me to bake these, so that he can see how they run away… lol 🙂
beautifully decorated the top one looks like it is going to run away :)happy holidays Aparna to you and family
So cute, Aparna! Love the one where they’re holding hands 🙂
Your little gingerbread men are so cute! I clicked on the link to your house you made last year. Absolutely beautiful!
I see Akshaya has started ‘modeling’. I have a pic of Harsha’s face where she is holding one of the things I made. She was making a face but she did not know that I was clicking her and not the ‘item’:). Do tell Akshaya that I liked the pic of her holding the lone gingerbread man the best of the lot. The other cookies look great too.
Men look handsome;) choky also wants me to do some and has been asking me for a long time. I think right time i’ll make some for him.I don’t have gingerman cookie cutter.Need to find one.As you said this little fellow is also inspired by the story but would love to finish the story.time to make some!!
Keep that man on the top in the purple background for me Aparna!!He looks damn handsome!!!
Awww!!! your gingerbread man looks sooo cute!!! :)) really like the photo of them in a circle..
Am enjoying reading your posts and am missing my oven this time of the year!
Gingerbread men looks cute. Loved reading the post. As for the last pic, I can all of them taste very delicious more so with the additional ingredient of love added to it. Thanks again Aparna.
enjoyed ur post thoroughly !
Can imagine how festive and Christmassy Goa will be! You are right, the kitchen is now the best the pace to be in more than any other time of the year and more reasons than one:-))Gingerbread men look cute!
Cute gingerbread men and love reading your post Aparna:)
Hi Aparna, I have been following ur recipes for some time now and they are fabulous. We don’t eat eggs and hence I bookmarked this recipe to make for my son as he always keeps asking me to make gingerbread man. Could you pls give the recipe for the eggless royal icing and the procedure to do it as this is my first time decorating cookies….
So I am back to tell you that I made it and I am blaming you for getting me hooked onto it! It tastes SO good! I went ahead with your adapted version. Love love love it! Thanks A!
Veeanoo, thanks for the compliments. I’m sorry I forgot to link to the eggless icing post and have added the links to the post. You can find it here : http://www.mydiversekitchen.co…Ria, that was really quick. Yes, its addictive and this my keeper recipe. Am happy you liked it too. 🙂
SO so pretty or handsome I should say. Beautifuly frosted too.
Your gingerbread men look lovely! And such a cute post! I forgot how much I liked that story too =) Merry Christmas!
In this festive season ,Kitchen is the place which is mostly occupied these days.I will surely try your gingerbread and soon will update the result.
These men are soo cute A! Great story 🙂 I’m off to check the eggless royal icing out, I’m real curious to see the recipe, since eggs are almost the base of them, and I’m sure you haven’t used egg replacer/meringue powder.