Pernicky are delicious Christmas cookies, baked in the Czech Republic, smelling of aromatic spices such as cloves, anise, and cinnamon. Decorated with sugar icing, pernicky are a staple on every Czech Christmas table!
The recipe for Czech gingerbread highlights bee honey as the main ingredient, along with a spice blend that gives the cookies a mild and delicate flavor.
Pernicky cookies are decorated with a simple sugar icing made from egg whites and sugar after baking. If you visit Prague at Christmas time, you will see street stalls with lots of beautifully adorned gingerbread that will steal your breath away!
MY TIP: Try vanocka, also known as houska, traditional Czech Christmas bread.
Fun fact: The same dough is used to make the gingerbread house (pernikova chaloupka) that Czechs bake and craft during the Christmas holiday season. The gingerbread houses are lavishly dressed, and many of them are true works of art!
➜ Ingredients you need
To make authentic Czech gingerbread cookies, you will need the following:
- All-purpose flour; or plain flour in the UK. In the Czech Republic, we call this kind of flour "hladka mouka"
- Powdered sugar
- Bee honey; of good quality. I buy honey from a neighborhood beekeeper. Sometimes happens, that the honey becomes stiff and granulated. In that case, heat it on the stove. Heating will dissolve the sugar and give the honey the liquid consistency you need to make the gingerbread dough.
- Unsalted butter; melted but not hot. I melt the butter in the microwave (10–45 seconds) or a small pot on the stove.
- Egg
- Unsweetened cocoa powder; for the better color of cookies
- Baking soda; for creating a tender texture of the baked dough
- Spice mixture: anise seed, anise star, allspice, ground cinnamon, cloves. More on Czech gingerbread spice later in the article.
✅ You’ll find the exact amount of ingredients below in the recipe card, which you can also print out.
Optional: An egg yolk to brush the gingerbread cookies right after they left the oven. Brushing the gingerbread cookies will ensure that their surface is beautifully shiny. If you want a matte finish, leave the cookies unbrushed.
In this recipe, I brush the cookies, so they are nicely glossy (see the description with individual steps).
Sugar icing: An egg white, icing or confectioner sugar, and potato starch.
➜ Instructions with photos
STEP 1: Grind the gingerbread spices, remove the larger particles, or sift the mixture through a coarse sieve. Melt the butter and possibly the honey if it is granulated.
STEP 2: Mix flour, cocoa powder, and baking soda. Sift these dry ingredients through a sieve into a large mixing bowl. Add sugar, ground spices, eggs, melted butter, and honey.
First, use a fork to mix the ingredients until compact chunks form. Then carefully dump the mass onto the work surface and work it by hand into a smooth, lightly sticky dough.
STEP 3: Wrap the pernicky dough in cling film and leave it to rest in the fridge overnight.
STEP 4: Roll out the rested dough on a lightly floured work surface to a thickness of about 1/8 inch. Cut out any shapes from the dough, carefully scoop them up with a pastry spatula and transfer them to a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.
STEP 5: Preheat the oven to 325°F (160°C) and bake the pernicky cookies for 8-10 minutes. The baking time depends on the size of the cookies; smaller cookies will need less time, while larger shapes will require a minute or two longer in the oven.
STEP 6: If you want gingerbread cookies with a shiny surface, prepare the egg yolk in a bowl and beat it with a fork. As soon as you take the cookies out of the oven, brush them thinly with a yolk. Because the gingerbread is hot, the egg yolk will firm up and create a glossy layer.
STEP 7: Prepare the sugar icing. Sift the icing sugar and potato starch into the bowl. Add the egg white and mix well. The result should be a thick glaze that, when you scoop it with a spoon, doesn't run off the spoon but falls off in chunks.
STEP 8: Pour the frosting into a piping bag fitted with a #2 or #3 piping tip and decorate the gingerbread cookies to your liking. Allow the cookies with icing to dry overnight before placing the cookies in the box.
MY TIP: If you want soft pernicky for Christmas, bake them 3-4 weeks in advance and store them as I describe here in the article.
When removed from the oven, the pernicky cookies are crispy. To soften, they need to rest in a paper box, closed with a lid (not an airtight container, please).
Line the paper box with kitchen paper towels and stack the gingerbread in it. Cover the box with the cookies and store them in a cool, dark place. The paper box is breathable, so the gingerbread gets the moisture it needs to soften.
Nice to know: The most popular gingerbread cookie cutters in the Czech Republic include star, comet, gingerbread man, bell, Christmas tree, angel, or fish shapes.
➜ Czech gingerbread spices
A little about the spices used in Czech gingerbread.
Even though the name makes it sound like the mixture has ginger, it doesn't. Traditional Czech gingerbread spice is a mix of spices, but the types, amounts, and proportions are not set in stone.
In the past, each family made a spice blend based on their own recipe and what spices they had on hand.
Cloves, aniseed, star anise, cinnamon, cardamom, coriander seeds, fennel seeds, and allspice are the most common spices found in Czech gingerbread.
⇢ Learn more about herbs and spices used in Czech cuisine
Some people only use three kinds, while others like to mix more than three. Personally, I like to use a combination of anise, star anise, cloves, allspice, and cinnamon.
For the best smell and taste, the spices should be ground into a powder before being used. I grind the spices in an electric coffee grinder, but you could also use a mortar and pestle or a hand spice grinder. Also, learn one quick method for grinding the spices by hand.
More Czech sweet treat recipes:
- Linzer cookies (linecke cukrovi)
- Pracny (Christmas cookies)
- Gingerbread slice (pernik)
Want the smell and aroma of Czech Christmas? Try Czech spiced wine, called "svařák"!
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Soft Gingerbread Cookies with Icing (Perníčky)
Ingredients
Czech gingerbread spice:
- 1 anise star
- ½ teaspoon anise seed
- 4 cloves
- 3 allspice
- ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
Pernicky dough:
- 2 cups all-purpose flour (260 g)
- ¾ cup powdered sugar (90 g)
- 3 Tablespoons bee honey
- ½ stick unsalted butter (55 g) melted
- 1 egg
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 Tablespoon dark cocoa powder unsweetened
- ½ Tablespoon Czech gingerbread spice see list of spices above
Sugar icing:
- ½ egg white
- 1 cup icing sugar (130 g)
- 1 Tablespoon potato starch
Misc.:
- 1 egg yolk to brush baked pernicky cookies for a shiny look
Instructions
- Grind the gingerbread spices, remove larger particles, or sift the mixture through a coarse sieve. Melt the butter and possibly the honey if it is granulated.
- Mix flour, cocoa powder, and baking soda. Sift these dry ingredients through a sieve into a large mixing bowl. Add sugar, ground spices, eggs, melted butter, and honey.
- First, use a fork to mix the ingredients until compact chunks form. Then carefully dump the mass onto the work surface and work it by hand into a smooth, lightly sticky dough.
- Wrap the pernicky dough in cling film and leave it to rest in the fridge overnight.
- Roll out the rested dough on a lightly floured work surface to a thickness of about ⅛ inch. Cut out any shapes from the dough, carefully scoop them up with a pastry spatula and transfer them to a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.
- Preheat the oven to 325°F (160°C) and bake the pernicky cookies for 8-10 minutes. The baking time depends on the cookie size; smaller ones need less time, while larger shapes will require a minute or two longer in the oven.
- If you want gingerbread cookies with a shiny surface, prepare the egg yolk in a bowl and beat it with a fork. As soon as you take the cookies out of the oven, brush them thinly with a yolk. Because the gingerbread is hot, the egg yolk will firm up and create a glossy layer.
- Prepare the sugar icing. Sift the icing sugar and potato starch into the bowl. Add the egg white and mix well. The result should be a thick glaze that, when you scoop it with a spoon, doesn't run off the spoon but falls off in chunks.
- Pour the frosting into a piping bag fitted with a #2 or #3 piping tip and decorate the gingerbread cookies to your liking. Allow the cookies with icing to dry overnight before placing the cookies in the box.
Notes
- Makes about 30 pernicky cookies (depends on their size)
- STORAGE: When removed from the oven, the pernicky cookies are crispy. To soften, they need to rest in a paper box, closed with a lid. Line the paper box with kitchen paper towels and stack the gingerbread in it. Cover the box with the cookies and store them in a cool, dark place. The paper box is breathable, so the gingerbread gets the moisture it needs to soften.
- If you want soft pernicky for Christmas, bake them 3-4 weeks in advance and store them as described above.
- The most popular gingerbread cookie cutters in the Czech Republic include star, comet, gingerbread man, bell, Christmas tree, angel, or fish shapes.
DISCLAIMER: Because I come from Central Europe, my recipes are based on metric units such as grams or milliliters. Check out how I convert metric units to the U.S. system:
Conversion chart
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