My very, very close friends know that more than anything in the world I love making gifts and organizing celebrations, and also I love handing out a good mood 🙂 I want to present you with Lady Brunner’s proven old English recipe for gingerbread, which I got while visiting Greys Court. Former hereditary actress, the granddaughter of Sir Henry Irving, the favourite actor of Queen Victoria, who has become a real English Lady. These gingerbread cookies are the most famous in Oxfordshire and are as simple as one-two-three!
- Prep time: 20 minutes, plus 15 minutes’ chilling
- Cook time: 10 minutes
- Makes: 20-30 gingerbreads
- Difficulty: easy
- Course: pastry
- Cookware: cookie cutter
- Cuisine: English
Ingredients
- 350 g flour
- 175 g brown sugar
- 125 g butter (room temperature)
- 1 egg
- 4 tbsp golden syrup or honey
- 2 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1 tsp ground dry ginger
- 1 tsp baking soda
Cooking method
Step 1
Heat the oven to 180°C. In a large bowl, combine all dry ingredients. Add butter. In a small bowl, mix honey / syrup and egg until smooth. Pour the mixture into a bowl with dry ingredients. Knead the dough. The dough should become smooth and easy to roll into a ball. Wrap in cling film and refrigerate for 15 minutes.
Step 2
Remove the dough from the fridge and divide in two. Set one part aside. Roll out a 0.8 cm thickness circle from the second part of the dough. Cut the gingerbreads. Cover the baking sheet with parchment and lay out the gingerbread cookies, leaving a little space between them. Bake for about 10 minutes. Repeat the process with the rest of the dough. Cool and decorate the gingerbread to your taste and mood.
My tips and tricks:
Tip number one: these gingerbread cookies are perfect to decorate for different holidays or to make them into Christmas tree decorations. They are quite hard and smooth, can be stored for a long time and only become tastier over time. Tip number two: “Golden syrup” is a thick, smooth syrup made from cane sugar with a unique creamy and caramel flavour. It’s less sweet than, say, corn syrup. It is also called light molasses (do not confuse it with treacle, which is black molasses). It is delicious when added to oatmeal or used for baking cookies, tarts, pastries, etc. But if you didn’t meet it on the shelves of your store, replace it with honey or maple syrup, although the Englishwoman Lady Bruner would hardly approve of it 🙂
- 350 g flour
- 175 g brown sugar
- 125 g butter (room temperature)
- 1 egg
- 4 tbsp golden syrup or honey
- 2 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1 tsp ground dry ginger
- 1 tsp baking soda
- Heat the oven to 180°C. In a large bowl, combine all dry ingredients. Add butter. In a small bowl, mix honey / syrup and egg until smooth. Pour the mixture into a bowl with dry ingredients. Knead the dough. The dough should become smooth and easy to roll into a ball. Wrap in cling film and refrigerate for 15 minutes.
- Remove the dough from the fridge and divide in two. Set one part aside. Roll out a 0.8 cm thickness circle from the second part of the dough. Cut the gingerbreads. Cover the baking sheet with parchment and lay out the gingerbread cookies, leaving a little space between them. Bake for about 10 minutes. Repeat the process with the rest of the dough. Cool and decorate the gingerbread to your taste and mood.