Composition, useful properties and harm of gingerbread. How is the delicacy eaten and what recipes can you try in your own kitchen?
Gingerbread is predominantly rye sweet pastry with the addition of aromatic herbs and spices, the main of which is ginger. Often such gingerbread cookies are covered with glaze. This dessert includes many vitamins, minerals and other nutrients that have a beneficial effect on the moral and physical health of a person. Despite this, there are categories of consumers who can be harmed by the sweetness. Who should refrain from eating treats and what can be made from gingerbread?
Composition and calorie content of gingerbread
The composition of gingerbread can contain completely different ingredients, only ground ginger remains unchanged. The dessert recipe is determined depending on the individual wishes of each manufacturer.
Most often, baked goods are made from rye flour, but wheat flour can also be used. Molasses, sugar, eggs (usually only yolks) and chopped ginger are used to knead the dough. For the dough to have a characteristic brown color, it is imperative to put caramelized brown sugar syrup in it.
To enhance the taste of gingerbread, pastry chefs stuff them with jam, ground nuts and more. On top, each of them is poured with icing, it can be chocolate or multi-colored.
The calorie content of gingerbread per 100 g is 360 kcal, of which:
- Proteins - 4, 5 g;
- Fat - 3 g;
- Carbohydrates - 78 g;
- Dietary fiber - 0 g;
- Water - 13, 44 g.
The ratio of proteins, fats and carbohydrates is 1: 0, 7:17, 3, respectively.
The main nutrients found in gingerbread are:
- Vitamins - B6, B12, D;
- Minerals - sodium, potassium, calcium, iron, magnesium.
On a note! To keep scented gingerbread cookies fresh and soft for as long as possible, buy a treat covered with icing. It is she who prevents the rapid hardening of baked goods. If the glaze on the gingerbread is unevenly distributed or has cracks, it means that they are stale or were poorly glazed.
Useful properties of gingerbread
Nutritionists, gastroenterologists and other medical specialists emphasize that the desserts purchased in the store are not always good for the human body. In order to reduce the cost of the production process, many manufacturers put substandard or unnatural products in them. If you have time, make homemade gingerbread and experience all the health benefits of the product.
Dessert has the following effect on the human body:
- Quickly restores energy in the body. It is known that rye flour is famous for its rich carbohydrate composition, and the glaze is full of nourishing sugars; in combination, these ingredients help a person to quickly recuperate.
- It cheers up, gives a person a feeling of joy, satisfaction and happiness. The hormones serotonin and endorphin are responsible for this function, the production of which in the body is provoked by almost any sweetness.
- Improves digestion without clogging the body with cholesterol - flour contains a lot of fiber, which stimulates the stomach and speeds up the digestion process.
- Increases immunity and has a beneficial effect on the entire human body - honey and ginger contain a large amount of vitamins, minerals and other nutrients that are beneficial to human health.
- Regulates blood circulation in the body. Ginger contains a lot of iron, which has a beneficial effect on the functioning of the circulatory system. In 100 g of gingerbread, 16% of the daily value of iron for a person.
- Supports the health of the musculoskeletal system - the delicacy contains 7% of the daily value of calcium for a growing and adult body. To enhance the healthful effect of the product, eat gingerbread together with yogurt, milk or kefir.
- Maintains the balance of hormones in the body - this is due to the content of sodium and other minerals in ginger.
- Supports heart function. Ginger dessert is packed with folate and niacin, which are beneficial for the heart and cognitive health (normal brain function).
- Reduces symptoms of nausea. This statement is not unfounded. Ginger has been scientifically proven to fight nausea and vomiting in pregnancy, chemotherapy and other conditions.
The prototype of modern gingerbread is honey cakes, which historians learned about from ancient written sources for 350 BC. NS. This sweetness was baked by the best chefs in Egypt and Rome.
Contraindications and harm of gingerbread
Gingerbread contains a lot of sugars that negatively affect the condition of the tooth enamel. In addition, rye flour contains elements that, after heat treatment, become difficult to digest by the gastrointestinal tract. So, eating too much gingerbread can have a bad effect on your digestion and, as a result, on your figure.
As noted earlier, many modern gingerbread manufacturers neglect the standard recipe and replace some of the constituent components of the sweetness with cheaper and less useful ones for humans. So, instead of natural bee honey, rich in vitamins and minerals, manufacturers often use corn substitute, which is practically useless for our body. Also, flavorings, flavor stimulants and other unnatural flavors are added to the gingerbread filling.
If you don't want to feel heavy in your stomach after eating dessert, try using homemade gingerbread instead of store goods.
Advice from the pastry chef! Store gingerbread cookies in a dry place and in an airtight container, away from direct sunlight. It is not recommended to leave them in a room with high humidity or near products with a strong and persistent odor. On average, ready-made gingerbread can retain their freshness and edibility for 20-45 days.
How to make gingerbread?
Modern confectioners are constantly inventing new types of delicacies. However, to prepare dessert in your home kitchen, you need the simplest and most understandable recipe for gingerbread.
To make sweetness in just 30 minutes, prepare the dough in advance, for example, in the evening, and the next day, proceed as follows:
- Whisk 115 g butter with 65 g granulated sugar.
- Add 1 chicken egg, 0.5 tsp to the resulting mass. soda, 150 g of honey and 2 tbsp. l. cocoa powder. Mix the ingredients thoroughly.
- Season the future dough with spices: 1 tsp each. ginger, cinnamon and 0.5 tsp. black pepper. If desired, you can add a few pinches of ground cloves to the dough.
- Add 375 g of wheat flour to the resulting mass and knead a moderately tight dough.
- Roll a ball or washer from the finished dough, wrap with cling film.
- Leave the dough in the refrigerator for a few hours. It can be left to cool overnight, it will not harm, but on the contrary, it will be beneficial. It can even be frozen and stored in the freezer if needed. It is best to send to the refrigerator not a bulky, but a flattened ball of dough, so the product will cool faster.
- When the dough has cooled, start forming the gingerbread, no more than 1 cm thick.
- Bake the treat for 10 minutes and no longer.
- Sprinkle the finished gingerbread with icing sugar or decorate with icing (in this case, wait until the gingerbread is completely cool).
On a note! For a quick glaze, use the following recipe: Combine 150 g of icing sugar with 1 egg white. Add 0.5 tsp to the mass.cornstarch and the same amount of lemon juice. Mix all the ingredients thoroughly - the glaze is ready! Note that it dries quickly, so use it immediately. If desired, you can add some color to the glaze.
Gingerbread recipes
Ginger dough can be used to bake not only gingerbread, but also original desserts, pies and cookies. We present to your attention three simple recipes for desserts from ginger dough or ready-made gingerbread:
- Gingerbread cake … The basis of the dessert is a fluffy sponge cake. You can cook the cake according to your recipe or use the following recommendations. Mix 350 g wheat flour with 300 g brown sugar, a pinch of salt and 1 tbsp. l. baking powder. Season the mixture with the aromatic ingredients: 4 tsp. ground ginger, 2 tsp. cinnamon, grind 4 pcs. dried cloves. Add 3 chicken eggs, 200 g softened butter and 200 ml of milk to the future dough. Mix the ingredients thoroughly, add 2 tbsp. l. honey and 1 tsp. orange peel. Knead the dough and divide the sponge cake into several layers. Bake for about 50 minutes. Leave the finished biscuit to cool for a while and prepare the cream. Combine 500 g of cottage cheese with 400 ml of cream, add a pinch of cinnamon and 200 g of powdered sugar to them. Beat the ingredients with a mixer. Spread the cream on the biscuit cakes. Pour chocolate over the top of the cake and garnish with gingerbread cookies.
- Quick Hand Gingerbread Pie … Buy ground ginger - to prepare this, desserts will need only 1.5 tsp. of this product. Mix it with 0.5 tbsp. brown sugar. If necessary, you can replace brown sugar with regular white sugar; this will not affect the taste of the cake. Brown sugar is used to give baked goods the dark color typical of gingerbread. Add 1 tsp to dry ingredients. baking powder for the splendor of the dough, a pinch of salt, cinnamon and fragrant cloves, crushed to a powder. In a separate bowl, combine the liquid ingredients of the pie - 100 ml sour cream, 1 chicken egg and 0.5 tbsp. honey. Combine the dry mixture with the liquid mixture and knead the dough. To do this, you will need 1, 5 tbsp. wheat flour and 100 g of melted butter. Pour the dough into a baking dish. Pour 50 g of melted white chocolate on top and sprinkle with poppy seeds. Bake the cake for about 45 minutes.
- Gingerbread Dessert … Using a mixer, mix 0.5 liters of sour cream (it is better to choose 20%) with 0.5 tbsp. granulated sugar. Add 3 bags of Nesquik cocoa and a pinch of vanilla sugar to the whipped mass. Mix all the ingredients thoroughly again, but do not whisk. Dip gingerbread into the prepared cream. For the prepared sour cream mass, you will need about 7 gingerbread. You can use a dessert from the store or bake it yourself, as described above in the article, how to make gingerbread. Place the gingerbread cookies in the shape of a cake and pour the rest of the sour cream on top of it. Decorate the dessert with chocolate chips and leave to steep in the refrigerator for several hours. During this time, the cream will saturate the gingerbread and the dessert will turn out not only sweet, but also soft.
Interesting facts about gingerbread
Historians find it difficult to answer the question of which people first learned how to make gingerbread. It is known that in Russia the first gingerbread cookies appeared not earlier than the 9th century. Then the delicacy was made from rye flour, honey, wild berries and was called flat cakes.
Over time, the recipe was improved, and spices with herbs imported from abroad began to be added to the dough. It is known that they began to call fragrant cakes gingerbread not earlier than the 18th century.
In the modern world, gingerbread has become a real symbol of Christmas. Confectioners from around the world make whole mini-cities from ginger dough - a tradition that dates back to the 19th century.
How to cook gingerbread - watch the video:
Gingerbread is a fragrant and healthy delicacy that should be present in the diet of every person. Nutritionists recommend giving up a hearty dessert for people prone to overweight or suffering from digestive disorders. The product is rich in calcium, potassium, iron and other nutrients necessary for the proper functioning of our body.
