Estonian Gingerbread cookies
2013 edition150 g sugar for caramelizing (+ some water)
200 g/ml hot water
210 g sugar
250 g unsalted butter
Spices (see below)
2 eggs (I use large eggs)
600 g flour (I use Type 550, 12% protein)
1 tsp soda
1 tsp baking powder
Spices (Kristiina's mix 2013):
3 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp clover
2 tsp cardamom
1 tsp ginger (dry powder)
1 tsp black pepper
a few allspice berries
1/8 nutmeg
fresh zest from half an orange
Pour 150 g sugar in a thick-bottomed pot, add some water, heat and dissolve. Also heat 200 ml water in another dish. When all the sugar has dissolved (the syrup no longer looks cloudy), heat the syrup until water evaporates and the melted sugar turns brown. Mix by swirling the pot, don't use a spoon. Stop caramelizing before it starts smoking. Drizzle in the 200 ml water. Beware the hot water vapor. When the caramelized sugar is dissolved, add 210 g sugar and mix until dissolved. Then add 250 g butter. Add ground spices (approx. 70-80 degrees Celsius syrup). Cool down the syrup. When the mix is about 40 degrees Celsius (warm but not hot), whisk in 2 eggs, one at a time. Mix flour with soda and baking powder and mix it into the syrup. I use a wooden spoon (less messy) but some people use a hand to mix until even. Put the dough in two clean strong plastic bads and refrigerate for at least overnight, but 3-4 days is even better. Cook cookies in 200 C oven for 4 and a half minutes.
Some tidbits:
The sugar for caramelizing can be melted without dissolving it in water. However, I have found it much easier to control the process if the sugar is evenly dissolved and then evenly melted and caramelized. If you just pour dry sugar in a pot and heat it, then it's easy to end up with half of it burnt and the other half still white and dry and chunks of sugar floating in it.
It seems that gingerbread cookies are very different in different parts of the world. Only Estonian traditional gingerbread cookie recipes start with heating caramelized syrup.
The brown syrup can also be bought in the store but I would like my recipe not to depend on a certain product that might disappear from the stores at any time. I'm sure the heated syrup method is traditional in some other countries as well but I haven't seen any modern recipe with heated syrup originating from any other country than Estonia. Here it is common knowledge that gingerbread cookies are done with caramelized syrup. Just mixing flour, sugar, butter, and spices would not qualify as more than a gingerbread-flavored cookie. 
The spices vary in different countries as well. In USA, gingerbread cookies are flavored with ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg and allspice. In Estonia, the typical mix contains cinnamon, clover and cardamom. Sometimes other spices like black pepper or coriander are used. I like gingerbread cookies to be very spicy and aromatic, so I used more spices than they used in any recipe that I found. I also really love the taste of orange with the taste of caramel and cinnamon. Mmmm...
Orange zest is not often used but it's really good. There seems to be some disagreement when the spices should be added. In my experience, it's a bad idea to boil the spices. You just lose so much of the flavor. Also, don't add the spices to cold syrup, otherwise the spices won't mix into the dough that well and even keeping the dough in the fridge for a couple of weeks doesn't help much. I got best results when I added the spices to hot (near boiling temperature) syrup and then cooled down the syrup in cold water bath. This way the spices were released and they didn't have too much time to just fly away. Cooling the syrup in room temperature results in very spicy smell in your home and quite mild tasting cookies. Also, if you keep them in the oven for too long, half the aroma is lost.
It is very important that you don't add the flour when the syrup is still too hot. Near room temperature is good. If the flour gets too much heat, then gluten in the flour will be cooked: the dough will be hard to work with, but the cookies will be very nice and crisp. The dough was just horribly sticky but the cookies almost made me think it's worth it to repeat the mistake.
Don't over-cook them. If the sides of the cookie are caramel brown from being in the oven, then you have lost half the taste. Orange taste goes first. Use a timer. If you're unsure if the cookies are done, flip them over and look for any brown patches. And wait for them to cool down and harden a little before you move then from the parchment paper.
If you use too much flour while making the cookies, then you might end up with bland and dry cookies. Especially true if you re-roll the same piece of dough several times and add flour every time. In stead, try rolling the dough on a sheet of parchment paper and pressing in the shapes there. The shapes look better, you need much less flour, and it takes less time to make cookies. Win.
Other news: I missed gym for about 40 days because I was too busy being at home with ill kids, then too busy trying to get back on track in the lab and then being too busy with the Christmas season. I haven't even started with my PhD thesis and I have not managed to do even one proper experiment for my current work project. Fortunately, the combination of LOTS of gingerbread cookies and the missed gym, did not have the combined effect I was afraid of. Also, I'm turning 30 in less than a month and have decided to postpone any "Where have I got in 30 years"-contemplation to next year, to a time barely before I am 31 years old.
