Another Christmas blog?
I love gingerbread, once it hits
December nearly every week i make
gingerbread, I know its still only the
second last day of November but i had
to make some!
I got these cute festive cutters in ikea for about €4 bargain! Icing is also optional, i like to dip mine in melted milk chocolate! :) Yummy!
These gingerbread men can be made with golden syrup or treacle. If ya make it with treacle it becomes very dark and there is a really strong flavour, Do not use this gingerbread to make a gingerbread house. It will fall apart and become extremely messy :P
The icing receipe uses the raw egg white. But water can be used instead.
Makes about 18 medium gingerbread men
I normally use a 20ml tablespoon and 250ml measuring cup for all this recipe.
What you will need:
375g (2 1/2 cups) plain flour
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)
3 teaspoons ground ginger
140g butter, softened (if its unsalted butter, add 1/4 teaspoon fine table salt with the butter to make it salty!)
130g (1/2 cup, packed) brown sugar
125ml (1/2 cup) golden syrup or treacle
1 large egg, separated into yolk and white
2 teaspoons mixed spice or ground spice (mixture of cinnamon, allspice and nutmeg)
DO NOT MELT THE BUTTER, IT DOES NOT HELP!!!!
Using an electric mixer or electric hand-held beaters, i used a whisk! Beat butter and brown sugar together in a large bowl. Mix and mix and mix until its smooth and creamy!
Add golden syrup/treacle and egg yolk to the butter mixture.
Beat for about 30 seconds until all the ingredients are mixed together well!
Stir or sift flour, bicarbonate of soda, mixed spice and ginger together in a bowl.
Using a spoon, or mixer add the flour slowly to the wet mixture. I used a wooden spoon/spactula and did it by hand!
Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius (160 in a fan oven!).
Line a large baking tray with baking paper.
Using your hands, bring the dough together into a ball, make sure to kneed it all together to get a big ball!
Cut the dough in half, put one half in between two sheets of grease proof paper, then roll out the mixture flat. Do this with the second half aswell. Make sure its flat, and pop into freezer for 15 mins, or 30 mins in fridge, this makes the dough nice and firm and extra easy to work with! Shorter cooking time too :P
Once dough is cold and nicely firm, take it out of the fridge or freezer, move it onto kitchen bench or leave on chopping board, and remove top sheet of baking paper. Working quickly, use a gingerbread man cutter or any shaped cutter to cut shapes from the dough.
Transfer dough shapes to the lined baking tray, placing them about 2cm apart. This way they don't stick together :)
Fill the tray and place in the heated oven.
I usually bake one tray at a time. But if i want to bake more than one tray at a time, you have to add more baking time :) Or just swap the trays around!
You can personalise the gingerbread men or women, by adding hair! I just popped a ball of gingerbread mix into a garlic press an then place them on the gingerbread women!
 |
| Gingerbread and milk! Nom nom nom! |
I bake the biscuits for 13 minutes. The longer the baking time, means the crispier they will be. I like them nice and crunchy. Make sure to watch that they do not over cook! The gingerbread gets firmer as it cools on a wire tray!
I use the excess gingerbread mix to make even more shapes :) Leave the gingerbread on the tray for 5 mins before moving to wire tray to let them set!
Icing
186g (1 1/3 cups) pure icing sugar, sifted
1 large egg white or 20-30ml (1 to 1 1/2 tablespoons) water
Food colouring, is optional
Add all ingredients into one bowl and mix. Then pop into a small plastic zip bag and cut off one corner and use as a piping nossle. Make sure you make the hole small to control how to put the icing on :)
I just skip this step and use cooking chocolate and dip the gingerbread into the melted chocolate! HEAVEN!
Happy Gingerbread Days
Kate
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