Who had the best Christmas cookie recipe? | Ancient Recipes With Sohla
140,285
Published 2021-12-04
What connects Abe Lincoln and Queen Elizabeth I? Gingerbread Men! Sohla explores two distinct but delicious recipes for these classic spiced cookies, in this holiday edition of Ancient Recipes.
THE RECIPES
Lincoln’s Gingerbread:
- ⅔ cup whole milk
- ⅔ cup sorghum syrup
- 4 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 tablespoons packed dark brown sugar
- ½ teaspoon saleratus
- 1 tablespoon ground dried ginger
- ½ cup (1 stick) cold salted cultured butter, cut into cubes
1. In a small bowl, mix together the milk and sorghum syrup.
2. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, saleratus, and ginger. Add the butter and cut into the flour until the mixture looks like a coarse cornmeal.
3. Add the milk mixture into the flour mixture and mix well with a spoon.
4. Heat oven to 325F. Break off a piece of dough a little larger than a golf ball. Place it on the work surface and roll it lightly under your palms to form a pencil-thin rope of dough about 12 inches long.
5. Break off a 4-inch long piece and set aside. This will become the arms.
6. Fold the remaining rope in half to form a narrow, upside down V. Grasp at the folded top, pinch together 1 inch down from the top and twist, forming the head and neck.
7. Place the arm piece across the back and under the neck. Gently press to secure. Place on the prepared baking sheet. Repeat these steps with the remaining dough.
8. Bake until the cookies are lightly browned, about 15 to 20 minutes. Watch closely as the sorghum or molasses in the dough tends to burn quickly.
Elizabeth I’s Gingerbread Recipe:
- 3 loaves whole grain bread
- ½ pound granulated sugar
- ½ ounce ground cinnamon
- ½ ounce ground dried ginger
- ½ ounce ground dried licorice root
- ½ ounce ground anise seeds
- 1-quart white wine
- water as needed
1. Cube the bread and spread it out onto a sheet tray to stale for a few days. Grate the bread in batches until fine. Pass the crumbs through a coarse mesh sieve to sift away the bigger crumbs.
2. In a large saucepan, mix together the sifted crumbs, cinnamon, ginger, licorice, and anise. Add the wine. Bring to a boil, and cook, stirring constantly, until you have a stiff paste. Add water as needed to achieve a paste consistency
3. Transfer paste to a bowl to cool.
4. Shape in the cookie molds & scrape off any excess.
5. Arrange on a sheet tray, and bake at 350F until done. The time will depend on the size of the cookie molds.
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Ancient Recipes with Sohla takes the food you know and love and traces it back to its origins. In each episode, Sohla El-Waylly details the surprising history of some of our favorite dishes as she attempts to recreate the original version using historical cooking techniques and ingredients. Along the way, Sohla highlights the differences between the ancient recipe and how we would prepare the modern version today.
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CREDITS
Host
Sohla El-Waylly
Created By
Brian Huffman
Executive Producers
Sarah Walker
Brian Huffman
Jon Erwin
Executive Producer
Sohla El-Waylly
Co-Producer
John Schlirf
Writers
Jon Erwin
Matt Romano
Historian - Scripts
Ken Albala
Post-Production Supervisors
Jon Erwin
John Schlirf
Editor
Aaron Mackof
Colorist
John Schlirf
Mixer
Tim Wagner
Manager, Rights & Clearances
Chris Kim
Executive Creative Director, A+E Networks
Tim Nolan
VP, Marketing Production, A+E Networks
Kate Leonard
VP, Brand Creative, History
Matt Neary
Music Courtesy of
Extreme Music
A+E Signature Tracks
Additional Footage & Photos Courtesy of
Getty Images
Alamy
Pond5
Wikimedia
All Comments (21)
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The Lincoln gingerbread recipe might have actually contained salt. Before refrigeration most butter was heavily salted for the sake of preservation. If a recipe called for butter, then the author usually was referring to salted butter. If a recipe required unsalted butter then it would be listed as sweet butter.
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Sohla “with all this wine, they can’t be for kids” In England it’s still really common to start giving your kids a sip of beer or wine as soon as they can start eating adult food, so about 2/3ish. In the Elizabethan era water wasn’t typically safe to drink so beer and ale were the drink of choice, or wine for the nobility.
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Moon cakes would be a really cool ancient recipe. Lunar new year will be coming early next year 🥮
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Queen victoria! I’ve heard that eating with her was a nightmare, because etiquette dictated that when she finished her course everyone else must stop as well. Unfortunately she was a very fast eater, so it was like a speed eating competition!
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Could you do an episode on how modern soul food comes from west Africa? Maybe something with greens or yams?
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Sohla you should make a cake like the ones Marie Antoinette would've eaten and see if it was worth it
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Sohla always forget the most important part of all these tedious ancient courtly recipes: Lots and lots of kitchen servants.
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I want to cook with Sohla every holiday! Love her energy!
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I'd love to see some Regency era recipes. there is a collection of recipes put together by a Lady called Martha Lloyd, she was best friends with Jane Austen and lived with Jane, her sister Cassandra and their Mother. In the household of four women Martha did a lot of the cooking so it's likely that Jane Austen ate a lot of the things in Martha's recipe collection.
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I would love to see more traditional First Nations/Native American cuisine. West coast salmon recipes/techniques would be so interesting.
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Would love to dive into some Aboriginal Australian foods. Talk about ancient! They had some seriously interesting native diets.
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From what I understand from my Oma a lot of ancient ginger bread recipes also had black pepper if you were rich enough. She said because pepper was so expensive often it was ommited so the middle class gingerbread was closer to modern gingerbread than royalty gingerbread
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What did the Vikings eat on their boats as they were traversing the North Atlantic and discovering Greenland and Newfoundland? Did they cook on the boat, or was it all dried/preserved foods? Also, what did they drink?
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I have never baked… Never wanted to. Suddenly I decided to make peanut butter cookies. I’m hooked.
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I love gingerbread, but my favorite cookie that family makes is Mexican wedding cake cookies! And biscochitos! Give them a try sometime if you haven't, they're delicious!
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In the Netherlands we still eat molded gingerbread men (speculaaspoppen) every year for the holiday Sinterklaas
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I'd love to see some insight into ancient Mongolian food. I think it was mostly meat and cheese but I wonder if they made any bread or dumplings.
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Sohla is the Cookie Queen of Youtube! Long may she reign!
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Beethoven was known for liking bread soup and Mac and cheese, would love to see how those were made
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The slapping out of the Elizabethan ginger bread is reminding me of Chinese mooncakes, which I think would be a great ancient recipe to try (if you can find sources for it).
