Granny's Traditional Gingerbread

Every year, I make gingerbread using this recipe which I got from my paternal Granny, who at 94 years of age has now retired from baking, but in her "active time" was an excellent baker and I always used to tell her she should open her own pastry shop.

The recipe is dead simple and the Pampered Princess who I gave it to a couple of years ago is a fan, too.

This is what the dough looks like before its "vacation in the sun":

And this is the bronzed outcome (and, no, the rectangles didn't magically morph into hearts during the process of baking, I made a total of 4 trays using different shapes):

Ingredients:

200 g sugar
69g lukewarm honey
2 eggs
300 g rye flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 sachet* allspice/ gingerbread spice mix

*this is usually sold in standardised sachets in Austria, I suppose the amount needed translates to about 3 tablespoons or so, depending on how "spicy" you like it.

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Mix sugar, honey and eggs and then add the rest. The dough will be very dense and sticky, but that's allright. Leave to rest in your fridge overnight or longer (I usually don't get around to baking until 3 days or so later...). When you take it out of the fridge knead through again and roll out on a flat surface to about 3mm in height. Use cookie cutters dipped in flour to cut out your preferred shapes. Brush with whisked egg white or water and decorate with blanched almonts or candied cherries if you like.

Preheat your oven to 200° and bake for 10 minutes or until golden brown.

Once it has cooled, the gingerbread will be crisp. As we want it to be soft rather than crunchy, we're going to use a little trick. Peel half an apple and cut into thick slices. Take 2 or three and eat the rest. Put the slices between double layers of greaseproof paper and put on top of the cookies in the tin. Leave for 2 days approx. Don't put directly on the gingerbread as the apple's acid and moisture will make it gooey. Don't forget to take out after 2 (3 days max) either, unless you want mouldy apples. This is what it should look like:

The gingerbread will be perfectly soft.