Pokrovsky gingerbread

To prepare the home Pokrovsky gingerbread, we will need the following ingredients: wheat flour, water, sugar, natural honey, unsweetened cocoa powder, refined vegetable oil, baking soda and salt. As spices for gingerbread dough, cinnamon, cardamom, ginger, nutmeg and cloves are used. All these additives are already in dry and ground form. I took 3 teaspoons of home seasoning for baking, which contains all these spices. In addition, the filling needs boiled condensed milk and peeled walnuts. Glazes for coating will be prepared from sugar and water.

Preparation of gingerbread dough will begin by making burning or burned sugar. To do this, in a thick -walled stewpan or a deep pan (small diameter), we pour half the sugar (100 grams).

We put the dishes with sugar on the stove and begin to melt on fire just below the average. At first, a pleasant golden shade is formed at the bottom. With a spatula, you can help the sugar melt faster, but you can not touch it, only shaking the dishes from side to side.

Then the sugar almost all will be dispersed and will turn into a beautiful mass of saturated caramel color. But this is only an intermediate stage — we need burned sugar.

Now one of the most difficult moments — you need to catch exactly the moment when a smoke appears above the surface of the caramel and the mass will become dark. But here it is important not to overexpose caramel, otherwise it will simply get blackening and burning — you have to start all from the very beginning. As soon as the mass is darkened, in parts we begin to pour 220 milliliters of boiling water into it (hold it ready, since the burn can be at any time). I tried very much to capture the process of connecting water and burnt sugar, but I think you understand that this is unrealistic. With one hand to interfere with caramel, pour boiling water with the second, also photograph at this moment … Moreover, at that moment the contents of the saucepan behave more than actively — he seetches and foams to the very edge of the dishes.

In literally 10 seconds, everything will calm down and our burnt sugar will completely dissolve in water. We proceed to the next stage.

Everything is simple here: we pour the second half of the sugar (100 grams) into the pan and interfere with it to completely dissolve. Literally in a minute this will happen.

Then I took off the saucepan from the stove to make it more convenient to photograph. You continue to cook on the stove. Add 1 teaspoon of cocoa, all spices (I remind you that I use a home mixture — 3 teaspoons).

Actively mix the contents of the dishes.

After that, pour 70 milliliters of vegetable oil without smell (I have sunflower) and intervene it in a liquid fragrant mixture.

Next we put 150 grams of natural honey and interfere with its complete dissolution. Since the contents of the dishes are very hot, honey is melting instantly.

In this step -by -step photo, I added baking soda (1 teaspoon without a hill, that is, under the knife), while remove the dishes from the fire.

Now see what is happening when we begin to mix quickly: Soda reacts with honey and the base for the future gingerbread begins to foam very much.

In parts, add pre-sifted wheat flour (450 grams) to our caramel-honey mass, mixed with a pinch of salt.

We interfere and sprinkle the flour, interfere and add … At the initial stage, I advise you to use a whisk or even a mixer to break all the flour lumps.

Then we work with a tablespoon, since the custard gingerbread dough will become thicker and it will not work to interfere with a whisk. Important: the amount of wheat flour according to this recipe is verified, and you may differ from the specified! In other words, you can leave both less and more flour, so focus on the consistency of the dough. In hot form, the gingerbread dough will be sticky, but not liquid — that's how they put a spoon up, so it will lie. As it cools, the dough will become denser, and in a warm form from the piece you slide the ball without problems and it will not stick to the fingers.

Still rather hot custard dough you need to not only cool, but also let him mature in the refrigerator (9-12 hours). That is why the process of preparing a home Pokrovsky gingerbread is stretched for 2 days: 1- dough, 2 — molding and baking. By the way, you can store the finished dough in the refrigerator for a long time — the month certainly nothing will happen to it. In addition, such a lean dough, there are neither eggs nor butter, therefore, it seems that even a couple of months it can wait in the wings. So that the surface of the dough is not covered with a crust, while the condensate does not form, we cover the warm dough with cling film into contact.

The next day we take out the gingerbread dough — it is quite dense and elastic, while quite a little sticky. However, for rolling and molding, wheat flour will be needed, the amount of which is hardly exceeding 1-1.5 tablespoons (did not indicate in the list of ingredients).

Divide all the dough into two identical parts. Sprinkle the working surface with a small amount of wheat flour, put one piece of gingerbread dough (we also fad it with flour). I like to roll out such a dough on a Teflon rug — on it and bake a gingerbread.

Roll the dough with a rolling pin in the layer. The thickness of the dough can vary, but it is best to make 1-1.5 centimeters.

We apply a boiled condensed milk on gingerbread dough (380 grams is 1 bank), not reaching a few centimeters to the edges.

On top we lay peeled walnuts (100 grams), pressing them into a boiled condensed milk. Sort in advance the nuts to make sure that there are no fragments of the shell and partitions.

Similarly, roll out the second piece of dough and put it on top of the first, covering the filling.

With our hands, we press all the dough and edges so that the air comes out and the layers are sticking together.

You can cut the workpiece in any convenient way — personally, I like the most like a pizza knife. We will use trimming to decorate the future home Pokrovsky gingerbread.

An important point: since nuts are laid in the filling on top, the upper layer of the dough is pinched, so you need to turn the workpiece. To do this, cover it with a cut of parchment or Teflon rug, put a baking sheet on top and quickly turn the structure. As a result, a smooth lower cake is looking at us, and under it a layer of boiled condensed milk.

We remove the remnants of the flour with a brush and proceed to decoration. Well, do the way your culinary imagination allows and how your culinary fantasy allows. This decor does not need to be attached to the workpiece — in the process of baking, the dough itself will stick perfectly.

We bake the home Pokrovsky gingerbread in the oven preheated to 180 degrees at an average level for 40-45 minutes. It is very important to understand that the baking time can differ very much from the specified in the recipe! It depends not only on the oven (I have gas, lower heating, without convection, and you can have electric), but also its character, as well as the size of baking. After 25-30 minutes from the beginning of the baking, it will be possible to check the readiness of the gingerbread: at first it will rise well, after which it will gradually blush. The last 10 minutes in the oven are the most important, since it is then that the gingerbread begins to darken rapidly (not burning, but to acquire a characteristic color). When you press the finished dough in response, it almost does not bend and slightly spring.

We take out the gingerbread from the oven and immediately prepare the icing for its coating. To do this, pour 100 grams of sugar into a bowl and pour 30 milliliters of water. We put everything in a microwave oven at the highest power for 2 minutes or cook on the stove — after boiling for a minute 1.5-2.

Hot sugar syrup quickly and quickly cover the hot gingerbread. The fact is that the glaze quickly sets and freezes, so it is important to work with a brush at a pace.

This is how the gingerbread looks 5 minutes after applying sugar glaze.

We give the pastries to cool completely and you can enjoy. In the finished form, the home Pokrovsky gingerbread weighs about 1 kg 400 grams.

Of course, the tastes are the most freshest to the homemade gingerbread, that is, after 5-6 hours from the moment of readiness, but after 3-4 days (store it tightly wrapped in foil), it will remain as soft, tasty and fragrant. True, I really doubt that it will remain with you for so long — it is impossible to break away from this dessert. Helen, thank you very much for this delicious and fragrant order. Prepare for health and pleasant to you appetite, friends!