In many countries a good tradition has developed - a New Year cookie (well, or Christmas). Dough for New Year cookies is made with spicy additives (ginger, vanilla or cinnamon, etc.). The cookies themselves are formed using piercing forms that can be thematic (Christmas trees, bunnies, fish, stars, etc.) or non-thematic (various geometric figures), for lack of special shapes, you can use a glass or a cup with a relatively thin edge or cut a shape from a small volume plastic bottle.
New Year's cookies are usually decorated with various colored liquid flowing confectionery goodies, including glaze. Sometimes with the help of glazes of different colors, even a New Year's biscuit is painted. For the industrial preparation of different colored glazes for cookies, it is possible to use various food colors, but at home it is better to use only natural color products (cocoa, cherry or beet juice and the like) as pigments.
Tell you how to bake a New Year cookie and how to make a glaze to decorate it.
The recipe for New Year's cookies
Ingredients:
- wheat flour high-grade - about 3 glasses;
- salt - 1 pinch;
- soda food, extinguished with lemon juice, - on the tip of the knife;
- butter natural - 200 g;
- granulated sugar - 200 g;
- egg of chicken - 2-3 pcs .;
- vanilla or cinnamon (but not together) and / or other spices;
- rum or cognac - 1-2 tbsp. spoons.
In the composition of cookies, you can also include 1-3 tablespoons of quality cocoa powder, however, it is better to mix 2 kinds of dough from these products - let pechenyushki be of two varieties.
Preparation
Sift the flour into a bowl with a slide, add salt and soda. Melt butter (but do not boil) and mix it with sugar. If the dough with cocoa, then you must mix cocoa with sugar in advance. Mix the sugar and oil mixture with flour and mix. We add eggs, rum and spices (you can ginger with cinnamon or separately, but not with vanilla), you can also include saffron and cardamom. Mix everything and let the test run for 20 minutes.
Roll the dough into a layer about 0.5 cm thick. Using punching molds or a glass, make pechenyushki. You need to grease the butter with butter, and it is better to cover with baking paper and grease with oil. Top spread pechenyushki. Bake in an oven at 200 ° C for 8-15 minutes. We shift the pastries and wait until it cools down.
Now the recipes for colored glaze for New Year cookies.
Ideas and principles of glaze making
The main component of any glaze is sugar powder, the second component must be liquid. An approximate quantitative ratio of 2/3 or 3/4 of the measure of the powdered sugar and 1/3 or 1/4 is the second component. The ratio 1/3 - 2/3 is possible when included in the composition of butter or gelling syrup (these products then freeze), such glazes by typology, rather closer to sweets.
Milk or cream with powdered sugar give an opaque even smooth white glaze tone. If the liquid component is water, a translucent glaze is obtained.
Glazes of brown colors and shades are obtained by mixing the powdered sugar with the ready (that is, cooked) strong cocoa or coffee. Adding milk of medium or high fat or cream, you can achieve different colors and shades of brown scale.
Glazes of red shades are obtained by mixing sugar powder with beet juice (very beautiful tones, drip a little lemon juice to improve the smell). Beautiful red colors and shades give red wine, or stabilized natural cherry juice, or juice from fresh pomegranate. If you want opaque red glazes - add a little cream or unsweetened natural yogurt (but not milk, juice will curd it, curdle). If using yogurt, do not heat the mixture.
To obtain the glaze yellow colors, use the egg yolks (the eggs must be checked). You can also use filtered fresh pumpkin juices and / or orange, tangerine.
We put the icing on the biscuits and wait until it freezes, or draw on the liver with tassels (you can use a plastic syringe without a needle). Involve children, they will be delighted.
We serve Christmas cookies with icing in the morning with tea, coffee, hot chocolate, natural juices or compotes.