In which I share a my own take on my mom’s gingerbread cookie recipe.

Carlos’ Countdown ’Til Christmas (6)

376 words about life — 11:00 · 18th Dec 2013

6 days until Christmas. The countdown continues.

How exciting is this? Not only is it less than a week until Christmas, but I’ve also officially exceeded last years post count with today’s post.

In honour of that, and also because we need to get started on this year’s gingerbread cookie dough I present you with the result of last years burden. As you might remember, I was quite obsessed with making gingerbread cookies last year and well… in the end, I settled—for now—on a recipe that builds from my mom’s recipe, which she has used since she was young. Call me nostalgic but having moved to a new country earlier that year I wanted something that felt “home”.

My own leatherbound recipe book, with its confusing and mad notes and recipes.
The notes of a madman.

The Gingerbread Cookies

(1)
280 g butter
280 g brown sugar
60 g dark syrup (treacle?)
(2)
12 cardamom pods (2 tsp)
2 tsp cinnamon
24 whole cloves (2 tsp)
2/3 tsp black pepper
(3)
4 tsp baking soda
3 eggs
1125 g flour

Directions

(1) Boil and simmer together, put to the side to cool.

(2) Fresh spices are always better but pre-ground will do. They won’t. Fresh, always fresh you cheap bastard

(3) Mix, one by one, into the cooled mix of sugar, fat and spices.

Make gingerbread dough a day in advance so that you can put in the fridge my mom always used to put the dough out on the porch for cooling overnight so that it’s cold and firm for the next day. Will make a good amount of gingerbread cookies for a family of 3. I think. I honestly don’t remember how many cookies it makes. Also, I suppose it depends on how big you make them.

Anyway, make those fucking cookies and bake them for 5 minutes at 225 °C. Stuff into your talking hole and enjoy.

Black and white picture of gingerbread cookies, urging to not forget about the lonely pig of 2012.
This is a picture of last year’s cookies because I haven’t baked this year’s cookies yet.

You’ve just read Carlos’ Countdown ’Til Christmas (6).

In which, 10 years ago, I wrote 376 words about life and I covered topics, such as: christmas , recipes , and baking .