🎅🎅Continuing with all things Christmassy, I made these ginger biscuits as decorations for my tree last year🎅🎅
51/2 cups sifted cake flour
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/4 tsp baking powder
2 tsp cinnamon
41/2 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground cloves
1 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
250 g butter or margerine
1 cup brown sugar
1 1/4 cup golden syrup
1 jumbo egg
1 tsp vanilla essence
Cream sugar and butter together, add egg, syrup and vanilla essence.
Add all dry ingredients. Mix well until completely blended.
Let dough rest for 1 hour or you can leave in fridge overnight.
Give dough a slight knead and roll out to 1 /2 – 1 cm thickness.
Cut out your biscuits with cookie cutters into shapes and bake for 16 to 20 mins depending on the thickness of your dough at 180 C (lower the temp for thermofan to 160 C)
Note: For the biscuits I pressed out the shapes and made a hole at the top of the biscuit with a wooden skewer before baking the biscuits.
This was for the threading of the twine to hang on the tree.
Some of the holes may close during baking.
As they come from the oven just gently press the skewer in to reopen any closed holes.
Let biscuits cool completely before icing with Royal icing.
Royal Icing
In a small bowl add 3/4 cup water, add 5 tbsp meringue powder and 1 tsp vanilla essence or you may use 1 tsp lemon juice.
Whisk together for 30 seconds then add 1 tsp cream of tartar and whisk a further 30 seconds.
Transfer this mixture to a stand mixer and with paddle attachment add 1 kg packet of icing sugar beating on low for 10 mins.
Pour icing into bowls and colour with gel food colouring.
I used plastic squeeze bottles to flood the icing on the biscuits and decorated with other colors.
You may use a piping bag with nozzle if you prefer.
Leave biscuits to dry overnight on a wire rack before hanging on the tree.
Prepared, tried and tested by: Gail Haselsteiner
