‘Lemon gingerbread cookies on the night before Christmas’

Since we still have our Christmas tree up, is it ok to bake gingerbread cookies? For the first time this year ( I have no idea why I have not before) made my own gingerbread cookie dough. It literally was the easiest thing ever and I added some lemon zest to add a bit of zing, and it was an addition I will be adding every year. I also like that when you make your own dough, you can make just a small batch as I prefer baking only 1 baking tray full of cookies. I also dipped the finished cookies into melted daim- chocolate, which added that special taste to them. I baked these cookies the day before Christmas Eve and I loved how it made the kitchen smell of sweet festive spices. That day we took a forrest walk with our little family and had some hot glögi and cookies with us to get into the spirit of the following day. I wanted to write this recipe down more for myself, as I will be making this every year as a little new tradition of ours. I can’t wait to bake these cookies with our little boy once he is old enough.

Ingredients ( 1 baking tray)

• 1/2 dl syrup
• 1/2 dl sugar
• 75g butter
• zest of 1 lemon
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1 teaspoon ground Cardamom
• 1 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1 teaspoon gingerbread spice
• 1 egg
• 2-3 dl flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda

Directions

Boil the butter, sugar, lemon zest, syrup and spices in a saucepan. Cool the mixture. Add in the egg. Add the flour and baking soda. Mix into an even batter. However, do not over mix the batter as this keeps the cookies crisp. If the batter seems too dry, you can add a little bit more melted butter. Place the batter into the fridge for overnight.

The following day, roll the batter out and use your cookie cutters to create shapes. Make sure to use plenty of flour so it does not stick to your surface. Place the raw cookies onto a parchment paper lined baking tray and bake in 200 Celsius degrees for about 5-8 minutes. Leave to cool on a rack and dip a corner of the cookie into some melted chocolate. I used daim-flavoured chocolate that I melted in a bowl over boiling water. Lastly I dusted the cookies with a coating of icing sugar.