Decorated Honey Gingerbread Cookies

What would Christmas be without some decorated honey gingerbread cookies shaped like Christmas trees? These are super easy and can be done in a food processor.

Hey, hey, we’re baking again!

The way we like it, is to include our family. I can’t wait for my little one to come out and grow enough to help me with Christmas baking. I remember baking with my mum when I was little (actually we still bake together sometimes). We’d turn on the radio, sing and make some delicious cookies. I was probably slowing the whole process and annoy my mum with that. She’s a cook and is used to do everything very quickly, but she let me work at my own pace and we had a blast together. 

I mostly use my husband to help me with Christmas baking these days. Aren’t I lucky to have found a man who likes to cook and bake with me?! Oh yes!

Anyway these year we’re trying new recipes and probaby some old ones that we’ve done a thousand times. One of the new ones are these lovely honey gingerbread cookies decorated with homemade royal icing. I’m not supposed to have raw royal icing, since I’m pregnant, but apparently the eggs were good and survived. We alwalys buy eggs at the same farm and store them in the fridge, so we’re reducing the risk of anything bad happening.

Okay, so I said it’s the first time I’ve made honey gingerbread cookies. Yup, I know, stupid!

Honey gingerbread cookies are actually quite traditional in Slovenia, but they are made a bit differently. They are called ‘medenjaki’, which means honey cookies in Slovene. They are spiced with similar spices, but are usually thicker and softer with a lemon and sugar glaze. I love those, they are amazing, but I’m kind of more into hard crunchy cookies right now.

I wanted to keep the honey theme though, so there’s honey in and I replaced white sugar with unrefined cane sugar, which is my absoulte favourite sweetener right after honey.

Why I love this recipe? Because it’s so easy and can be done in a food processor and if you’re not a fan of royal icing you can just skip it. They are totally delicious without is too. You can put some food coloring in and let the kids make their own colorful cookies, or make the most delicious vanilla sauce form my Hot Baked Apples with Vanilla Sauce recipe and dip them in. So many possibilities 🙂 

Let’s get bakin’.

Print

DECORATED HONEY GINGERBREAD COOKIES

Course Dessert

Keyword christmas baking, Christmas cookies, gingerbread cookies

Prep Time 20 minutes

Cook Time 8 minutes

Total Time 3 hours

Servings 60 cookies

Ingredients

HONEY GINGERBREAD COOKIES

• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup unrefined cane sugar
• 1/3 cup + 2 TBSP honey
• 1 egg
• 3/4 tsp baking soda
• 120 g melted butter
• 1 TBSP ground ginger
• 1 TBSP cinnamon
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1/4 tsp ground cloves
• 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
• 1/4 tsp salt
• big pinch of black pepper

ROYAL ICING

• 1 fresh egg white
• 1 cup icing sugar
• pinch of salt

Instructions

Honey Gingerbread Cookies

1. Place all ingredients into a bowl and mix well with a spoon. Use your hands to knead at the end. Alternatively, you can use a food processor to make the dough come together. In that case, kneading won’t be necessary.
2. Refrigerate the dough for at least one hour.
3. Preheat the oven to 180 °C.
4. Leave the dough at room temperature for 10 minutes before making cookies.
5. On a lightly floured surface roll the dough to about 3-4mm thick and cut out the cookies.
6. Move them to a lined baking tray and bake for about 8 minutes (for smaller cookies. Mine were about 7,5 cm long). Adjust the time for bigger cookies.
7. Move them to a wire rack to cool.
8. Royal Icing: Beat egg white with a pinch of salt until stiff but not dry. Add icing sugar one tablespoon at a time and beat until it forms stiff peaks and you can’t feel sugar grains when rubbing it between your fingers.
9. It can be stored in the fridge for up to 3 days.

Decorating

1. When the cookies have cooled down completely put royal icing into a piping bag with a thin tip or a very small hole and decorate the way you like it. It might take a little to get the grip of it, if you've never done that, but you can do it!

2. Leave the icing to dry completely.

Notes

Try to use eggs that are fresh and kept in the refrigerator to minimize the risk of bacterial infection.
Keep in mind that royal icing contains uncooked eggs, so be careful not to serve them to pregnant ladies, babies, small children, or other high-risk people.