Disney never fails to impress when it comes to holiday decor, holiday celebrations, or holiday meals, but there are also plenty of holiday desserts or Christmas treats that you can bake at home if you can’t make it to any Disney Parks for a vacation during December! Two popular holiday recipes from Disney are this recipe for hot chocolate and this recipe for Frontierland’s Minnie Mouse gingerbread almond cake pops, but Pixar has just released another recipe for gingersnaps that’s inspired by Merida and Elinor from Brave (2012)! The Scottish Disney princess adventure film is filled with gorgeous animated views of the Scottish highlands and some hearty Scottish cuisine like haggis and buns, so these gingersnap cookies promise to be just the thing for Christmas celebrations at home.
The recipe for baking these holiday gingersnap cookies is apparently by Pixar Pastry Chef MaryLou Jaso, and it has a fairly small amount of ingredients compared to some more complex desserts. With a gingersnap cookie, the right amount of spice is key for its signature ginger flavor! The ingredients that you will need are butter, eggs, cinnamon, black pepper, brown sugar, salt, grated fresh ginger, powdered ginger, baking soda, flour, demerara sugar, molasses, and ground cloves. Although baking powder and vanilla are common baking ingredients, neither is required in this recipe.
To make the gingersnaps, begin by creaming (which means mixing together) the butter, brown sugar, salt, and all of the spices. Next, add in the molasses, then the eggs. Be sure to check for eggshells! In a separate bowl, whisk together the baking soda and flour. This will help activate the baking soda, since it’s a leavening agent. Next, mix that flour and baking soda mixture in with the dough you’d already creamed together!
Next, shape each ginger cookie by scooping out an ice cream scooper’s amount, rolling that doughball in demerara sugar, and flattening it a little. Repeat until you’ve got a tray full of cookies. You could roll the doughballs into little balls instead of large flat cookies, but then the cookies will lose their signature crunch and snap! Lining the tray with parchment paper will make it easier to take the gingersnap cookies off at the end.
Finally, bake the ginger cookies at 325 degrees for about ten minutes until they’re golden and a little cracked! The last step: enjoy your gingersnaps! Ideally, they should have a slight crunch. A gingersnap is essentially a light ginger cookie with extra crunch!
If you really want to bake something Scottish for your holiday celebrations that feels like it came directly from the highlands of Scotland, then you could also try the recipe for cranachan or the recipe for Scottish stew from this Disney Princess cookbook! There are also recipes for Scottish shortbread, Raspberry Scottish Empire Biscuits. and Witch’s Spell Cakes in this Disney Princess baking cookbook. Are you doing some baking for Christmas?
