20.12.09

My favourite bit about Christmas is...


...making gingerbread ! It's a great traditional pastime to undertake in this festive season and there is nothing more enjoyable to me than sitting down with my 5 year old son and decorating our own little gingerbread house.

I have done this since he was a baby and although he might eat more sweets than he sticks to the house, the anticipation on finishing it is sometimes too much for him and he begs me to start eating it as soon as we've stuck on the last sweet.


This is an example of one of our houses from 2007 (a minimalist offering):
And seeing as I am feeling especially festive and giving today I have decided to share with you the recipe I use for all my gingerbread cookies/houses. It's a really easy dough that makes a chewy cookie and is a great one to make with the kids (I use US measurements which can easily be translated via google):

  • 3 cups plain flour
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1 tablespoon ground ginger
  • 2 teaspoons cinnamon
  • 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
  • 6 tablespoons/90g room temp unsalted butter
  • 3/4 cup dark brown sugar
  • 1 large egg
  • 1/2 cup treacle
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
  1. Whisk together all dry ingredients in a bowl and set to one side.
  2. Beat together butter, sugar and egg until well mixed.
  3. Add treacle and vanilla to the mixture and mix again.
  4. Gradually add dry ingredients until it forms a sticky dough.
  5. Wrap dough in clingfilm and set aside at room temperature for at least a few hours. The dough can be stored in a fridge but needs to be brought to room temperature before using.
  6. Preheat oven to 375f and line your baking sheet with baking parchment. Roll dough out to thickness of 1/4" and bake for 8-9 mins.
  7. Cool cookies on baking sheet and then move to cooling rack until completely cold.
  8. Once cool, decorate with royal icing and sweets.
Now go forth and bake!

5 comments:

  1. Those cookies look great!! :) What's the recipe you use for Royal Icing??

    <3 Betsy

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thank you! I use the Royal Icing recipe using egg white powder (or meriwhite) as I like the icing to be safe for children and egg white powder uses pasteurized egg whites. I use the recipe here http://www.imaginativeicing.demon.co.uk/royalicing.html and it makes enough to cover about 100 gingerbread men or one house.

    Liana

    Liana

    ReplyDelete
  3. I remember your gingerbread house. It was amazing, like eveything else you've made it is a shame to eat it.

    Oh top tip, don't try and eat it all at once.

    how aobut gingerbread ladies?

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous21.12.09

    hello... hapi blogging... have a nice day! just visiting here....

    ReplyDelete
  5. Bryn - thank you for pointing out my obvious attempt at cookie sexism I will ensure this is looked into immediately!

    Hapi - stop by anytime!

    ReplyDelete