gingerbread biscuits for a happy christmas

The biscuit baking journey has reached its ultimate destination:



Happy Christmas everyone!

This is my last post for the year. Thank you again for your support, humour, advice and comments throughout 2013; I am constantly amazed and inspired by the lovely people I have met thru blogging.

I wish you and your family the Christmas of your dreams (mine: a quiet one, with sunshine). Take care wherever you are in the world, enjoy your Christmas dinner, and remember: there's always room for desserts.

e XX

Gingerbread biscuits
Adapted from a Donna Hay recipe. How many biscuits this makes depends on the size and shape of the cutter you choose.

• Cream 125 gms soft butter with 1/2 cup light brown sugar for about 8-10 minutes.
• Add 150 gms golden syrup (I heated mine gently in the microwave to get it pourable).
• Add 1 1/2 heaped tspns of both ground ginger and mixed spice, and a good pinch of ground cloves.
• Now sift in and fold thru 2 1/2 cups plain flour and 1 tspn bicarb of soda. Get your hands in and squeeze together until it forms a dough.
• What you do next depends on your dough (and, it seems, the weather). The first time I made this (the test run), the weather was warm and so the dough was soft and pliable, so I rolled the dough out to about 4 mm thick between two sheets of baking paper, then chilled overnight (or at least half an hour). The second time I made this, the day was colder, and the dough was harder and more tempermental, so I squeezed it as best I could, chilled it overnight to give it a chance to come together, then rolled it out the next day between two sheets of baking paper.
• When ready, preheat your oven to 180.
• Choose your favourite cookie cutter and stamp away, flouring the cutter between each biscuit to prevent sticking (especially if you are dealing with an intricate shape like reindeers' antlers. Whose bright idea was this? Reattachment may be necessary). Transfer the individual biscuits to a lined tray. Once you have cut as much as you can from the sheet of dough, you can either re-roll the scraps and start again, or roll the scraps into small balls and flatten slightly with a floured fork.
• Bake for 12-15 minutes or until golden, rotating the trays halfway thru. Once done, remove and cool on the tray for a few minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool. Decorate if your skills run to that area (mine don't).