Christmas Gingerbread Biscuits

 Hi, this recipe is from BBC Goodfood's December 2021 'Festive Bakes and Treats' special magazine, that came with my BBC Goodfood subscription by Cassie Best, page 7. It is actually a recipe for a Gingerbread Wreath, but I just took the biscuit base recipe and my sister and I made our own festive shapes.

These biscuits were a super fun Christmas holiday activity to do with my younger sister. We were playing Christmas music and singing and dancing along, whilst sweet spices filled the kitchen. It was a perfect Christmas scene and one you can replicate too! Maybe invite some friends over and bake biscuits together, or make them on your own and give them as a gift (maybe both) because this recipe makes a lot of biscuits. It's the perfect way to spread festive cheer.

This gingerbread recipe can be used to make the gingerbread for a gingerbread house, if you wanted as well. 

Enjoy!

Hazel :)

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Dietary Info:

-Vegetarian

-Unsuitable for Vegans

{See below. For the egg, I would suggest using a chia or flax seed egg: 1 tbsp seeds : 2.5 - 3 tbsp water per egg.} 

-Contains Dairy

{In place of the butter, use a dairy-free spread, or try some melted coconut oil to bring the dough together. However, I would suggest just trying to find a vegan / dairy-free gingerbread recipe online and using that e.g. BBC's vegan gingerbread which uses dairy-free spread.}

-Contains Gluten

{You could try with a gluten free plain flour, but you may need extra melted syrup mixture to bring it together as gluten-free flours tend to absorb more liquid than wheat flours. However, I don't actually think you will need extra in this recipe because I had to add extra wheat flour to the dough because it was too sticky - maybe gluten-free flour is the solution to this problem!}

-No Nuts 

{Unless you add them.}

-Pudding / Snack

Ingredients: 

For the gingerbread:

-175g dark muscovado sugar {We used white, caster sugar because we already had some open. It is more economical to use what you have, rather than buy more. The only effect it had on the gingerbread was that they were slightly lighter in colour than normal.}

-85g golden syrup {We used a mixture of maple and golden syrup, as we had about 50g of maple syrup left in a bottle, so we used that (just to use it up really) and then made up the rest of the weight in golden syrup.}

-100g slightly salted butter {We used Clover margarine. Any butter or margarine will be fine here.}

-350g plain flour, plus extra for dusting

-1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

-1 tbsp ground ginger {Our ginger ran out on us! We only got about 1/2 tbsp of ginger out of the jar. Fortunately, we had a mixed spices jar in our cupboard which contained ginger, so we added 1/2 tbsp of that and then substituted it for the cinnamon too (so added another 1 tsp of the spices), just to get the most ginger possible with the ingredients we had.}

-1 tsp ground cinnamon

-1 egg, beaten

To decorate: {This bit is completely up to you. Whether you make gingerbread men, wreaths, shapes or houses, you can decorate them however you like!}

-icing sugar (and water)

-icing pens

-sprinkles, raisins, chopped nuts, dessicated coconut etc..

-chocolate (melted, to drizzle or dip)

-fondant

Method: 

1: Put the sugar, golden syrup and butter in a saucepan. Bring to a simmer, then bubble for 1-2 mins, stirring until well combined. {Basically, heat everything until everything is melted.} Set aside to cool for 10 mins. {The timings don't have to be exact, just move onto the next step once everything has melted and the pan is off the heat, it will take about 10 mins to do the next step (weighing, sieving etc.).}

2: Tip the flour, bicarbonate of soda and spices into a large bowl.  {You may want to sieve them, but it's not necessary.} Add the warm syrup mixture and the egg, stir to bring everything together, then gently knead in the bowl until smooth and streak-free. {Kneading in the bowl was too hard for me, so I tipped it out onto a floured worksurface. However, I did have to add extra flour to the mixture because it was super sticky to begin with.} The dough will feel a little soft now, but will firm up once cooled. Wrap the dough in cling film and chill for at least 30 mins. {Ours chilled for about 45mins.}

3: Remove the dough from the fridge and and leave at room temperature until softened. {This is only necessary if your dough has been in the fridge 1 hour+, otherwise it will have residual heat from step 1 still.} Heat oven to 200C/180C fan/gas 6 and line two baking trays with baking parchment. {Reusable if you have it!}

4: Roll out the dough to the thickness of a £1 coin, and cut out a variety of shapes with Christmas cutters or a homemade stencil and arrange these over the baking trays. {If you find you've filled up 2 trays, stick the first 2 in the oven and once they're done, reuse them for batch #2.}

5: Bake the biscuits for 10-12 mins, swapping the trays over halfway through cooking. {I didn't need to swap the trays over, you can always leave one in the oven a bit longer too.} Leave to cool on the trays, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. {I had to transfer to a wire rack immediately so we could reuse the trays. If doing this, be careful as the dough will still be slightly soft (it hardens upon cooling) so you could change the shape of what you've made if you're not careful.}

6: Decorate once cooled.

While you're here...

I have a Pinterest for all my recipes, where you can save them to boards for the future and categorise them into different types of recipe e.g Sunday Dinners, picnic ideas etc. My account is @hazellikestocook, or find the link below. Also, I have a whole blog post explaining this in more detail here and https://hazelscookingandbakingblog.blogspot.com/2021/02/pinterest.html. 

https://pin.it/5xDvARk - my profile

This recipe:

https://pin.it/7KFF45P