I’m going back to the office tomorrow after a joyous
Christmas break full of glorious lie-ins, homemade sloe gin and more cheese
than you could possibly imagine. This is a quick guest post from the
mother-ship, since I was too busy this festive season to do anything this fun
baking-wise, but here’s to 2014 and hoping that I have more time to bake!
My mum was left alone with my camera, and here’s what
happened… This is the same recipe as my
mum’s gingerbread tree decorations too, if you fancy making any of them too next
Christmas.
Ingredients
6oz butter
6oz light
muscovado sugar
2 eggs,
beaten
1 lb plain
flour
2tsp
baking powder
1-2tbsp
ground ginger
2tsp
ground mixed spice
White royal
icing
White chocolate
Chocolate
Santa (optional)
In a large bowl cream together the
butter and sugar using an electric hand-held whisk.
Gradually beat in the eggs.
Sift in the flour, baking powder,
ginger and mixed spice.
Stir everything until well combined.
Turn the dough out onto a lightly
floured surface and knead gently.
Wrap the dough in some cling film and
leave to chill in the fridge overnight.
Now is where you need to create your
templates. Sketch out the shapes you want on some card and cut them out to be
used as stencils.
When you are ready the next day,
preheat the oven to 180⁰C.
Roll out the dough between two sheets
of baking parchment, until about 3mm thick.
My mum had a few issues cutting out
the shapes, and wanted me to include the ‘fail’ pictures to show that even
experienced bakers make mistakes! She learnt from this that you need to flour
the card templates so that they don’t stick. She also accidentally made the two
sides of the sleigh identical, instead of one the mirror opposite, but when all
is said and done and you decorate it, it doesn’t really matter!
To make the Reindeer she used a
cutter from M n S.
Place the shapes on floured parchment
onto baking trays and bake for 10-15 minutes, watching carefully to make sure
that they don’t burn. Cool on a wire rack.
Make some white royal icing and
decorate the sleigh before sticking it together.
My mum used white chocolate and a bit
of royal icing to stick the sleigh to a silver cake board.
Stick things like tin cans to prop up
the gingerbread whilst it’s drying.
Then go nuts with the decoration, and
use plenty of icing sugar as snow, because you know…Christmas.
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