TOP 4 recipes for making Dresden Christmas gingerbread at home. Cooking tips and secrets. Video recipes.
Grilled sausages, mulled wine, gingerbread cookies, fluffy trees, Christmas carols … winter holidays in Germany filled with delicious flavors and magic. Tourists come here every December to see German fairs, buy traditional souvenirs and sample local delicacies. Dresden Christmas Market - considered the oldest in Germany. More than 200 market shawls with all kinds of souvenirs, toys and food appear on the main square here. It is with the Dresden fair that Germany's Christmas gastronomic traditions are associated. Here for the first time they began to sell the famous Christmas dessert - gingerbread, which is also called adit (Weihnachtsstollen or Christstollen). Prepare your own Dresden Christmas gingerbread at home and feel the spirit of Christmas in Germany. This article contains the TOP 4 best recipes for German Christmas pastry.
Culinary tips and secrets
- The Dresden Gingerbread is an oblong Christmas cake with a high butter content.
- Another feature of the stollen is the optimal taste, which the product acquires only a few weeks after baking, when all the ingredients soak into the dough and create a unique aroma and taste.
- Dresden Christmas gingerbreads can be stored for a very long time, wrapped in the paper on which they were baked, or in foil.
- Before baking, various flavors are added to the dough: raisins, nuts, candied fruits, poppy seeds, spices (cardamom and cinnamon), dried fruits, etc.
- There are many varieties of gingerbreads: curd, poppy, almond, nut, marzipan.
- The finished baked goods are generously sprinkled with powdered sugar so that the product looks like a snow-white diaper in which the newborn Jesus is wrapped.
- To determine the readiness of the product, pierce the gallery with a wooden toothpick or splinter. If there is no dough left on the stick, then the baked goods are ready and can be removed from the oven.
Raisin gingerbread
Back in the 16th century, it was customary for Christmas to give friends large fragrant cakes, which, according to sources of past years, could reach the length of a "bench". Make these delicious baked goods to present to family and friends for Christmas.
- Caloric content per 100 g - 569 kcal.
- Servings - 2 muffins
- Cooking time - 3 hours 45 minutes
Ingredients:
- Flour - 2 tbsp.
- Vanilla sugar - 0.5 sachets (for lubrication)
- Butter - 200 g (in the dough), 100 g (for lubrication)
- Lard - 1, 5 tablespoons
- Raisins - 1 tbsp.
- Bitter almonds - 0.5 tbsp
- Sweet almonds - 1.5 tbsp
- Sugar - 0.5 tbsp. (in the dough), 2 tbsp. (for lubrication)
- Lemon zest to taste
- Candied fruits - 1 tablespoon
- Yeast - 35 g
- Milk - 0.5 tbsp.
- Powdered sugar - 2 tablespoons (for lubrication)
- Ground nutmeg - to taste
- Salt to taste
Cooking raisin gingerbread:
- Chop the candied fruit finely, chop the almonds (sweet and bitter) to a flour consistency, and grate the lemon zest on a medium grater.
- Dissolve sifted flour (2-3 tablespoons) with yeast and sugar (1 tablespoon) in warm milk and prepare a dough.
- Then add the rest of the flour with sugar, melted lard and butter to the dough.
- Knead the dough so that it does not stick to your hands and leave it in a warm place to rise for 2 hours.
- Roll out the dough into long strips. In each of them, make a longitudinal groove (groove) 2 cm deep, where you put the filling: washed raisins, candied fruits, lemon zest and nutmeg.
- Roll the dough to keep the filling inside and place in a baking dish.
- Grease the gingerbread with butter, cover with glazed sugar and bake for 1 hour in a heated 180 ° C oven.
Aged dough rug
The dough for such a gingerbread is kneaded in a month, but as a result, the baked goods are unusually tasty and aromatic. Therefore, such an exquisite treat is worth the wait.
Ingredients:
- Rye flour - 1 kg
- Honey - 500 g
- Sugar - 1, 5 tbsp.
- Ghee - 300 g
- Eggs - 3 pcs.
- Baking powder - 2.5 tsp
- Thick jam - 1 tbsp. (for the layer)
- Carnation - 10 buds
- Cardamom - 6 boxes
- Badian - 4 stars
- Ground cinnamon - 1/2 tsp
- Ginger powder - 1/2 tsp
Making a gingerbread from aged dough:
- Boil honey, butter and sugar over moderate heat, remove from heat and remove foam.
- Put the extracted cardamom seeds, cloves, star anise stars in a mortar and grind everything into a powder. Pour the mixture into the butter-honey mass and cool it to 40 ° C.
- Then add all the ingredients except the jam and knead the dough for half an hour.
- Roll the dough into a lump, wrap in plastic and refrigerate for 1 month, but at least 1 day.
- Divide the dough into 2 pieces and roll each piece out into a rectangle. Place it on a baking sheet and bake in a preheated oven to 200 ° C for 15 minutes.
- Lubricate one part of the finished gingerbread with jam, and put the second part on top.
- Lay parchment on the rug, on which place a massive board or other oppression. Leave the product as it is for 1 week.
Almond gingerbread
There are many types of stollen, but the most popular is the Dresden one. Almond gingerbread is perfectly stored, even remains fragrant and tasty after a month after baking.
Ingredients:
- Flour - 500 g
- Yeast - 60 g
- Milk - 1/8 l
- Lemon - 1 pc.
- Peeled almonds - 125 g
- Softened butter - 150 g (in dough), 150 g (for coating)
- Cardamom - 1/2 tsp
- Sugar - 75 g
- Salt - a pinch
- Candied fruits (lemon and orange) - 125 g each
- Seedless raisins - 125 g
- Powdered sugar - 50 g (for coating)
Making almond gingerbread:
- Dissolve the yeast in warm milk.
- Sift the flour, heat it in a preheated oven to 50 ° C for 20 minutes and make a depression in it, where pour in the diluted yeast.
- Knead the dough, cover it with a towel and leave to warm until it doubles in volume.
- Grate the zest from the lemon, finely grind the almonds and mix with the butter. Add cardamom, sugar and salt.
- Cover the mass with a towel and leave for half an hour.
- Chop the candied fruits, rinse the raisins and add to the dough.
- Knead the dough, place on a greased baking sheet and leave to rise for 20 minutes.
- Bake almond gingerbread in a preheated oven to 200 ° C for 20 minutes. Then brush it with butter and continue baking for another 20 minutes.
Chocolate mug
Chocolate gingerbread interspersed with pieces of chocolate is a delicious treat that can be stored in a cool place for a long time.
Ingredients:
- Flour - 400 g
- Yeast - 50 g
- Milk - 150 ml
- Chocolate drops - 100 g
- Softened butter - 130 g (in dough), 130 g (for coating and decoration)
- Cocoa powder - 50 g
- Sugar - 75 g
- Salt - a pinch
- Seedless raisins - 100 g
Cooking chocolate gingerbread:
- Dissolve yeast in warm milk, add flour and knead the dough. Cover it with a towel and leave it in a warm place to double in volume.
- Add cocoa powder, softened butter, sugar and salt to the dough. Cover it with a towel and let it sit for 30 minutes.
- Add chocolate drops to the dough and place on a greased baking sheet.
- After 20 minutes, send the chocolate gingerbread to bake in a preheated oven to 190 ° C for 40 minutes. In the middle of the process, brush the product with butter.
