Gingerbread Blossoms Recipe (2024)

FAQs

How long should I chill gingerbread dough? ›

Using a wooden spoon, gradually mix in the flour mixture to make a stiff dough. Divide the dough into two thick disks and wrap each disk in plastic wrap. Refrigerate until chilled, about 3 hours. (The dough can be prepared up to 2 days ahead.)

Gingerbread dough needs to rest in the fridge to avoid cracking. There are lots of reasons you should chill gingerbread dough before rolling and baking. One of the most important is that resting the dough allows wet and dry ingredients to thoroughly incorporate.

Fats in the dough melt in the oven, and if there aren't enough dry ingredients to hold the fat, it spreads, and the gingerbread loses its shape. However, too many dry ingredients will cause the gingerbread to be crumbly and dry, so it's vital to get the balance of the ingredients right.

Chilling the dough before it goes into a hot oven gives the butter a chance to firm up and reduces how much it spreads when baking. “You should chill the dough both before rolling and cutting and after,” she said.

If you try to roll out the dough right after removing it from the fridge, it will be too stiff to work with. Instead, take it out of the refrigerator and allow it to sit at room temperature for 5 to 10 minutes until it's warm enough to roll without tearing or cracking.

An excessive amount of butter makes it where the flour is unable to absorb the combined fat, which causes the cookie to spread too widely and the sugar to carbonize more easily because it's surrounded by too buttery a dough.

The deep, caramel-like sweetness of molasses pairs perfectly with the warm spices of ginger, cinnamon, and cloves, creating the iconic flavor profile of these classic treats. The choice of molasses over other sweeteners adds a depth and complexity that elevates gingerbread to a cherished holiday tradition.

Can I Omit the Cloves? You can skip the ground cloves if you need to in gingerbread cookies but we really like that warmth from the spices.

Needing to be foiled, gingerbread loves whipped cream. But it also takes to tart winter fruits like a shortcake to strawberries. Poached or broiled pineapple sings alongside gingerbread, as do a few spoonfuls of pomelo curd, garnished with candied pomelo peel.

Our answer

Bicarbonate of soda is an extremely active raising agent and if you add too much then the gingerbread will rise up a lot during baking, then sink back fairly dramatically. If the surface of the gingerbread is wrinkled then this is also a sign that there was too much bicarbonate of soda.

Why is my gingerbread falling apart? ›

From doubling up on molasses to using too much flour, there is a lot that can go wrong. Forgetting the molasses resulted in a crumbly cookie that was light in color. Combining all ingredients at once created lumps in the finished product.

1) If the cake is under-baked or the oven door is opened too many times before the cake is fully baked, the gingerbread may sink. 2) If the batter sits too long before making its way into the oven, the baking soda can begin to react with the other ingredients too quickly.

To make sticky gingerbread dough easier to work with, chill it for at least 1 hour before rolling it out. Roll out the dough on a surface that's lightly dusted with flour or a mixture of flour and confectioners' sugar (aka powdered sugar).

Chilling it for at least two hours or overnight gives the ingredients a chance to absorb one another, making it a whole lot easier to roll out the dough without it cracking. Follow this tip: Let the dough chill in the refrigerator, well-wrapped, for at least two hours or overnight before rolling it out.

Gingerbread cookie dough can be made and stored in the fridge in parchment paper for up to three days before you cut out the dough and bake. Store the cut-outs in the freezer. Once you have cut out the shapes, you can flash freeze them and store in the freezer, then bake from frozen.

Unless the dough is so firm it becomes brittle, refrigeration will make the dough less fragile in most cases.