Gingerbread (Claire Damon)

How about the best gingerbread recipe I've ever eaten ? Good news, it's right here ! It's a recipe by Claire Damon, taken (again) from François Blanc's book, le Paris des Pâtisseries (in this book the recipes are all great, well explained, very well illustrated... if you don't have it yet, there's still time to add it on your list to Santa Claus ;)). On top of that, it's an easy recipe, its only drawback is that you have to wait one night before baking the gingerbread. I multiplied the quantities by 1.5 (the quantities indicated below are mine) and I baked the dough in a small bundt cake tin 16cm in diameter, the proportions were perfect, it's up to you to adapt according to your tin and the number of servings you want ! Finally, you can make it bigger and keep it for several days without any problem.

Prep time : 45 minutes + 40 minutes cooking + one night rest
For a small bundt cake mold (16cm) | 8 servings :

The gingerbread :

173g water

78g sugar

4.5g star anise

4,5g lemon peels

4.5g orange peel

57g acacia honey

57g chestnut honey

173g flour T55

1,5g 4 spices mix

10.5g baking soda

1.5g fine salt

108g butter

Melt the butter.

Bring water and sugar to a boil. Off the heat, add the crushed star anise and the lemon and orange peels.

Film the saucepan, and let it infuse for 15 minutes.

Filter the syrup to remove the anis and peels, then pour over the honeys. Pour back into a saucepan and cook at 55°C.

Sift the flour, 4 spices mix, baking soda and salt.

Pour half of the liquid over the powders.

Mix with a whisk, then add the rest of the liquid, always whisking at low speed. Finally add the melted butter, without emulsifying.

Put a plastic wrap on the dough and place it in the refrigerator for 1 night.

Pour the dough into your buttered and floured mould and bake the gingerbread at 160°C for 40 minutes.

The icing :

150g powdered sugar

40g lemon juice

Sift the powdered sugar and mix it with the lemon juice.

Immediately remove the cake from the oven and pour the icing over it.

Wait for the icing to crystallize, then enjoy !