Goodness gracious me! Christmas is a crazy busy time of year. I seem to forget, every time, how much work there is to do, from cooking to shopping to wrapping gifts and so much more, but I consider it a privilege to be able to do some of this, especially the baking part, with my children. I know it won't be long before they're to cool or too busy to help Mom out, although my kids are awesome and they all have such big hearts.
Anyway, let's get back to round 1 of the gingerbread cookies!
So, we obviously had to make the dough and roll it out, cutting Christmas-shaped cookies as carefully as possible and then baking them to perfection. I must say, after the last few years of biscuits that were either too soft or too hard, I finally nailed the recipe!! The next step will be to dip them in melted chocolate and decorate them. This will be the first time I'm doing it with chocolate, so wish me luck! I just didn't feel like boring royal icing this year.
So I took an ordinary cookie recipe and basically just doubled the ingredients, adding a touch more baking powder and spices to make them taste like ginger biscuits!
Ingredients
1kg all-purpose flour (plus at least another 200g for dusting!)
3 generous teaspoons of baking powder
2 large eggs
500g butter
two or three teaspoons of ginger (powdered)
to or three teaspoons of cinnamon (powdered.
Vanilla essence 4 teaspoons
sugar 250g
Looks like we might have a mouse in the house!!
Apparently, I don't have a rolling pin/can't find it. A wine bottle is a great hack!
Tools:
2 x large plastic bowls
Electric hand mixer
teaspoon(s)
Tablespoon (s)
Fork
Rolling pin (or a bottle of wine - lol)
Timer (you can set your phone if you don't have a timer on your oven)
Skewers for making holes in the biscuits
Assorted Christmas-themed cookie cutters
Method:
Wear clothes that you are willing to get dirty! This is a gloriously messy task!
@aimeludick wore an apron! Clever girl!
Cream 250g of the butter with the sugar, eggs, and vanilla essence
Sift the dry ingredients into the other bowl and combine.
When I say combine, this is when your hands get dirty, so prepare yourself with a clean wet cloth and a dry cloth. you will be kneading the above into a stiff dough.
Prepare your working surface by cleaning it thoroughly 1st, obviously, and then coating it with flour.
Prepare baking trays by spraying them with Spray and Cook and then lining them with baking paper.
Heat the oven to 180° C.
Roll out the dough to about 5mm thick and then start cutting out your shapes. As each one is completed, put it straight onto the tray and make a hole so that they can be strung up with ribbon and hung up on Christmas trees.
Bake and repeat until you are done. With help, you can complete a tray of cookies in the time it takes to bake one, so it's a great and easy process.
You might find the biscuits are slightly soft as you take them out of the oven, but as long as they are slightly golden brown, they will harden once cooled.
These ones turned out so beautifully! Many times I have attempted biscuits, but they end up so hard you almost crack your teeth! Also, there's not much to get excited about with royal icing so I'm changing it up with chocolate and assorted sprinkles this year.
I'll let you know how that goes! I am terribly nervous actually because I don't have much/ any experience in working with melting and hardening chocolate, with just enough time in between to decorate.
Any hints would be welcome!
Kitchen Hacks
As you roll out the dough and cut out your shapes there will always be booboo cookies that fell apart or whatever, and plenty of offcuts. Use this leftover dough to continue to make as many cookies as you can. You will need to re-dust the table with flour for each round. Make sure your rolling pin is also well-dusted. Then, you may notice that this leftover dough is dry, so plonk it all in the bowl, add about 50 grams of butter, and knead until it feels right. Then roll out and continue to cut and bake as before! Waste not, want not!!! There was a small amount of dough left over that I couldn't be bothered to cut into shapes and I let the kids bake this and munch on it :)
🎄⭐🎄☃️🍫🍪❄️