Decorated gingerbread cookies bring us memories of the past when they were adored and longed by children and young girls.

Gingerbread hearts, known as Licitarska srca are edible and are made from common ingredients such as honey or sugar, flour, eggs, water, and edible colors. In addition to heart-shaped forms they are also made in forms of boots and horseshoes.

The tradition of giving gingerbread hearts as a pledge of fidelity is very common in northern Croatia, especially in the Croatian Zagorje region. Giving these unique heart-shaped gingerbread cookies with a mirror and poem verses on them is still popular in Croatia. In the city of Zagreb, as well as in other parts of the Croatian Zagorje region gingerbread hearts are a souvenir that all visitors are happy to take home with them!

We have prepared a secret recipe of these traditional Croatian delicacies:

Gingerbread Heart Recipe

Dough ingredients:
1 kg of sugar
6 dl of water
3 eggs
1 teaspoon of gingerbread yeast (salakalij or fresh yeast)
all purpose flour according to the amount of decorations that we want to make

Glaze ingredients:
100 g of gelatin
1/2 liter of water
red food color

Directions:
Boil water and sugar together, cool and pour into another dish. Add eggs, yeast and flour as needed and blend the dough. Let the dough set for at least 3 hours in the refrigerator.
After 3 hours roll the dough, use a cookie cutter using shapes of your choice, place the cookies on a cookie sheet. Bake the cookies 5-7 minutes at 250 ° C.
Cool the cookies and decorate.

Gingerbread hearts

Gingerbread hearts

Glaze:
Dissolve the gelatin in ½ liter of boiled water, but do not boil. Cool and color. Cookies can be coated or dipped in the mixture, and dried on a grid.

Gingerbread hearts

When cookies are completely dry, decorate as desired. Nowadays there are food colors in a tube making it easier to decorate the cookies. Traditionally, bits of mirrors and occasional pictures are pasted, and decorated with tendrils using tube food colors.

Choice: skrinjakreativnosti