Gingerbread

There can be no Christmas without gingerbread, so I thought I'd better crack on and make some. I've never made them from scratch before, so I had to hunt down a recipe and try to find all the ingredients. This recipe makes enough dough for lots and lots of biscuits, so I can give some away as presents. I had to hide them all before Hubby, also known as the Gingerbread Monster, had a chance to find them.

Gingerbread

300g butter
1 dl sugar
2 dl soft brown sugar
2 big tablespoon scoops black treacle

3 tsp powdered Seville orange peel *

3 tsp cinnamon

2 tsp ground cloves

2 tsp ginger

2 eggs

2 tsp bicarbonate of soda

1 tsp salt

1,4 litres plain flour

Melt the butter in a pan, and add the sugars, treacle and spices. Mix it well and let it cool down. Add the eggs one by one. Then add the flour, bicarbonate of soda and salt (you can leave a little bit of the flour for later to stop the dough sticking to the table). Let the dough rest overnight in the fridge. Take a little bit of the dough (leave the rest in the fridge until you need it, otherwise it'll be a nightmare to work with) and roll it out into a sheet (not too thin as it will tear easily) and cut it into shapes with cookie cutters. Line an oven tray with baking paper, lift the biscuits on top and bake 225°C/until lovely and brown (small ones will cook in about 4-5 mins, but keep an eye on them, they burn easily.). Let them cool down and decorate.  

They are a bit of a faff to make, especially if you're trying to get spindly legged animal shapes onto the oven tray in one piece. They taste lovely though, so I'll be using the same recipe again. I'll just be making stumpy legged pigs, much less hassle!

*) You can use all these spices or make your own mix with a combination of any of the following: powdered cinnamon, nutmeg, mace, allspice, ginger, Seville orange peel and/or cardamom.