Gingerbread Chabors

If you stumble upon my ig account you will notice I've been in a festive baking mood. I'm looking for warm flavours for winter but in reality I live in Malaysia so all I'm getting is a sore throat from all the ginger. Last year I tried a new recipe for gingerbread men which had a strong pei pah goh flavour thanks to the generous dose of molasses. I didn't hate it but I didn't love it either. Last week I found a recipe written in my recipe journal. I was happy because this was the one with golden syrup and I remember being happy with the taste back then. Looking at the recipe, I found it odd that there was only ginger for spice. Since it was my own writing, I trusted myself. Boy, was I annoyed with ME. To be fair, its a lovely ginger nut biscuit taste but I was so irritated when I was rolling the cookies out. The dough was so soft and difficult to work with. It wasn't even a warm night when I was doing this. A very vague distant sense of deja vu appeared and I felt I had experienced this before. I did get the cookies done but not without frustration. Gosh, an angry baker is not a pretty sight.

I set out to look for another recipe, convinced that ME had sabotaged me with this dodgy recipe. So I tried another & hoped for the best. Same thing. The dough stuck, I had to decapitate and annihilate deformed shapes. I got there in the end. I am writing both recipes here as they both taste good in their own way. A few tips if you are baking these in a warm & humid climate. Turn on the ac in the kitchen if you have one. If you don't, try to do this at night when its cool. Divide the dough up to 4 and keep the rest in the fridge when rolling out. Don't be afraid to flour the surface generously. Flour the suface, flour the dough. Roll, flip and flour some more. Keep dusting with flour. Work fast to get the shapes onto the tray. Its not so bad, I'm just sharing my experience when baking in this climate. Not dry & crispy wintery weather. Its wet, humid, warm & cool at the same time. 

Note: Recipe #1 will yield a crispier cookie compared to the soft and chewy Recipe #2. HOWEVER, thanks to our humid weather, Recipe #1 will turn soft after 2 days so you'll end up with the same texture lah

Gingerbread Recipe #1

375g plain flour

1 tbls ground ginger

120g salted butter

100g brown sugar

1 egg separated

1 tsp soda bicarbonate

1/2 cup golden syrup

Gingerbread Recipe #2

350g plain flour

1.5 tsp soda bicarbonate

2 tsp ground ginger

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp all spice

freshly ground black pepper

1 egg

1/2 cup sugar ( even mix of brown & castor)

160g salted butter

3 tbls black treacle

3 tbls golden syrup

Method for both is the same

1. Whisk all dry ingredients together and set aside

2. Cream butter and sugar(s) until pale and fluffy. Add egg(yolk) and treacle/golden syrup to the mixture

and beat until combined

3. Using a spatula, mix in the dry ingredients until you get one cohesive mixture. Divide dough into 4 and wrap in cling film, flatten in to discs and refrigerate for 1 hour at least

4. Preheat oven to 180C and line 2 baking trays with paper (you may need to redo this part depending on how may cookies you end up making

5. Flour surface (read second paragraph). Roll out dough to desired thickness, remember they puff and expand. If you want crispy cookies, roll them 3mm or so. But the thinner they are, the harder it is to handle. Put your shapes on to prepared trays and pop them to lower section of the oven. Bake for 10 minutes

6. Cool on wire rack

Royal icing

1 egg white

150g sifted icing sugar

Whisk egg white until soft peaks, add in sugar a little at a time. Whisk till you get a glossy mixture. Divide and colour.