Gingerbread Man

Finally the magical season is here! Now more than ever we all long for at least a small miracle. While someone is waiting for it to appear, the other create it by themselves. Today I’m going to tell you about one of the coziest Christmas treats that even got a role in a famous animation film.

Shrek the Halls, 2007

“My mama used to always say, 'Christmas ain't Christmas till somebody cries!' Usually that someone's me.”

IMDb ranking: 6.4

Genres: comedy, adventure, family, fantasy, short film, animation

Certificate: 0+

Seems like Shrek has never celebrated Christmas and has no idea that this kind of holiday exists at all. After learning about all the “rules” of Christmas he throws a feast for his family in his special “ogre” style. But suddenly they are disturbed by unexpected guests.

Several interesting facts about the movie:

• It’s the first special episode for TV made by DreamWorks company.
• First Shrek animation film from that series was based on a book, published in 1990.
• Shrek is the first animation movie, which got Oscar as a best animation film.
• A prototype for Shrek appearance is Maurice Tillet, a French professional wrestler, who was very famous in the beginning of XX century.
• The look of Lord Farquaad, an evil guy from the first movie, is based on one of Walt Disney company’s bosses.

Brief History Behind the Gingerbread Man

Gingerbread is known since the time of ancient Greeks and Romans. Ginger became a part of the pastries in Europe at the time of crusades. Knights brought this spice from China and it grew in popularity pretty fast because of its unusual taste and good preservative properties. Since that time gingerbread is an essential treat of every fair. First shapes of gingerbread resembled animals and flowers. Gingerbread shaped as a “man” became a part of belief among young unmarried girls — if a girl eats a “ginger husband” at the fair, she will meet a real one soon.

However those gingerbread men all of us are familiar with owe their appearance to Elizabeth I, Queen of England and Ireland. Diplomats, who arrived to Great Britain for building partnership between countries at that time, got very differently looking gingerbread men as a gift.

Another funny fact is that gingerbread man is a “folklore” brother to Kolobok, a small yellow spherical being — the main character of an East Slavic national fairy tale. Both English and Slavic tales have exactly the same plot. By the way, gingerbread house, another very famous treat for the Christmas table, was invented in Germany thanks to Brother Grimm story about brother and sister, who found a gingerbread house of a witch while they were lost in the woods.

Gingerbread Man Recipe

Ingredients:

• 300 g flour
• 100 g butter
• 100 g brown (cane) sugar
• 90 g honey
• 1 egg
• 1 ½ tsp backing powder
• ¼ tsp salt
• ground ginger, cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg to taste
• 1 egg white
• 50 g sugar powder
• 1 Tsp cocoa (optional)
• food coloring (optional)

1. Take butter out of the fridge in advance so it became very soft. In a bowl mix butter, salt and sugar. You may use common white sugar but in this case your cookies will not have that special texture. Use food processor at a high speed to whip the butter until it’s puff.

2. Add honey to the mixture. If your honey is crystallized, put it closer to the warm heater. You could also use a microwave oven for this purpose but some people think honey loses its useful properties like that.

3. Add egg and stir carefully.

4. Put the spices in the mixture. Choose the spices you like but be careful and don’t add too much of them otherwise the cookies will have a very strange taste.

5. Sift flour and the backing powder adding them little by little to the bowl. If you want your cookies darker in colour, for example to contrast with icing, add a teaspoon of cocoa to the dough.

6. Mix the dough until it comes together. Make a ball out of it, cover with food wrap and put in the freezer for 1-1,5 hours to make it easier while cutting.

7. Spread some flour on the surface before putting there the dough. Remove it out of the freezer and roll it 1 cm flat. Use a special cutter to make gingerbread man-shaped cookies.

8. Do not forget to cover the sheet with backing paper first. You may butter it as well if you are still afraid the cookies would stick to it. Carefully place the cookies on the backing sheet.

9. Preheat the oven to 180 ℃. Bake the cookies for another 10-15 minutes. The time of backing depends on the thickness of the cookies. But if you leave them in the oven for too long, the gingerbread men will be too dry and breakable. So it’s better to keep an eye on them, just in case they decide to run off and you know, Lord Farquaad with a glass of milk never sleeps.

10. When it’s ready, remove the backing sheet with cookies from the oven. Let’s prepare icing while cookies are getting cold. In another dry and clean bowl whisk egg white together with sugar powder until stiff peaks. If you want gingerbread men clothes and faces to be different in colour, separate the icing in portions and add food colorings to them.

11. Put icing in a pastry bag (you can also use an ordinary plastic bag pierced with a toothpick) and decorate your cookies similar to what was shown in the movie, make sure they are cold by now. Do not put the icing on the warm cookies because it will melt.

Grab your hot chocolate with marshmallows and take a sit in front of the fireplace. Do not forget to play one of the movies from our Christmas lists and of course leave a glass of milk and a gingerbread man for Santa.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!