When December arrives, I find myself overwhelmed with the desire to be English and experience a snowy, homely British festive season. And so I switch on the mellow tones of Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and turn my mind and hands to the foody creations of Step By Step Desserts and Confections – the most posh, English grandmother-y book I can find. This year, my first festive recipe has been old fashioned gingerbread biscuits.
You’ll need:
Biscuits:
- 1/3 cup treacle
- 60g soft dark brown sugar
- 60g softened butter
- 3/4 teaspoon of bicarb soda
- 1/4 teaspoon of ground
allspice
- 1/4 teaspoon of ground
cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon of ground ginger
- 1/4 teaspoon of ground cloves
- 1 egg
- 300g plain flour
Icing:
- 1 ¼ cup icing sugar
- 2 teaspoons of lemon juice
- A much water as you need to
make a very thick - but still liquid - icing for piping
First, beat together all of the biscuit ingredients (but
only 1/3 of the flour) with electric beaters for 2 minutes. Then add the other
2/3 of the flour and mix in by hand. You’ll end up with a firm dough that you
can shape into a ball.
Preheat the oven to 180°C. Then roll out your dough to 3mm
on a lightly floured surface, and cut out shapes! Roll the leftovers together
and keep cutting shapes out of them until you have no dough left. I have quite
small biscuit cutters, and I ended up with around 40 biscuits. Place them on a lined baking tray to bake.
Pop them in the oven for 12 minutes and when you take them
out, transfer them immediately to a wire cooling rack.
Then, set about making the icing. You could just do the
traditional white icing, but I added some drops of green and red colouring to
add to the festive spirit of my biscuits. Pipe to your heart’s content (this can
take some practice, so perhaps sacrifice any eccentrically shaped biscuits to perfect
your piping technique)
Let the icing set, and you’re done! A lovely traditional
treat to get everyone in the Christmas mood.
