Gingerbread Christmas Ornaments

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Creating a lovely gingerbread Christmas ornament is quite an easy task. Making Gingerbread Christmas ornaments during Christmas is a convention in several households. Gingerbread houses decorate their family tables during holidays and gingerbread cookies are given as gifts. But, the most exciting thing that you can do with gingerbread is to make gingerbread ornaments, which you can hang on your Christmas tree, which last for years to come. You can even give them as an exceptional and lovely Christmas gifts.

Gingerbread Christmas ornament differs from a usual gingerbread cookie. They look and smell the similar however; they surely do not taste the similar. White gingerbread cookies are soft and delectable, biting into a gingerbread ornament can invoke a trip to the dentist. When making Christmas gingerbread ornaments, the recipe is tough from baking cookies. Ornaments get very hard after baking so that they must be painted, hung on the Christmas tree and conserved for decorations over the years. Making gingerbread cookies during Christmas festival is an age old tradition, celebrated by several families, countries and races.

The preservative qualities of ginger were discovered in medieval English times. Ginger was used in pastries, breads and cakes for making them last longer during extended journeys. Cakes of ginger were also made for celebrating religious holidays.

Today, ginger is also used as homeopathic treatment for motion sickness and nausea. It is used in all kinds of recipes as well as religious rituals. The gingerbread men making remains the most famous use of ginger. These smell like real cookies and are made with different components. Gingerbread dough and cookie cutters are used for making Christmas gingerbread ornaments.

In order to make gingerbread Christmas ornament, you need following given material:

• 3 tabs of shortening
• 1/2 cup of sugar
• 1 teaspoon of cloves, ginger and cinnamon
• 1/2 cup of molasses
• 3/4 cup of water
• 3 1/2 cups of flour

You need to first preheat oven to 350 degrees. After this, you need to beat shortening and sugar until fluffy and light, stir in molasses. Now, you need to sift dry components together. Now, stir them into shortening mixture in three parts alternating with ¼ cup of water every time. Dough will be stiff. After this you need to cut dough into three pieces. Knead to warm dough slightly and roll every piece out about ¼ inch thick. Cut cookies in Gingerbread patterns that you like.

You should use a drinking straw to punch hole in the center when ornament will be hanging. You need to place cookies on cookie sheet for twenty minutes for baking.. Now turn your oven off. Finally, you need to remove cookies from cookie sheet and then place on rack to dry them for three days so that they become completely hard. These cookies are simply used for decorative purposes. If you want, you can seal cookies with three coats of clear acrylic and decorate with different colorful acrylic paints when dried.