Ginger Cookies | Festive Baking

 

I've been hearing and seeing plenty of festive things this week so I have asbolute no guilt in starting my festive baking! I frickin' love christmas.

I baked these gingerbread cookies this morning, and Graham has devoured half already! He is a big fan, and I'm so pleased because I kinda winged the recipe a little bit. I ran out of plain flour so had to do a third with self raising which means they were less like gingerbread and more like cookies. Big thumbs up from Graham though, because they had a crunchy outside and a soft, tasty middle. So, I think I'll call these ginger cookies and say it was all in the plan!

I find that they can look rather plain and boring without a bit of decoration and that playing around with icing is all the fun anyway (apart from eating!) I love baking at Christmas and giving out food gifts as a little something extra. Obviously with bakes like this, they won't keep too long so if you're looking for some treats that you can prepare in advance, try fudge or a mulled wine recipe. Or bake some now and say it was practice ;) I'm always on the hunt for the best christmas recipes and usually have a browse of BakingMad before thumbing through my cookbooks. If you have any must-have recipes, please share!

I am so pleased with how these little christmas puds turned out. They were extremely easy to do and taste great! The top is simply dipped in to glace icing, and then left to dry on a piece of baking paper. I double dipped a few of them to make sure they looked pretty white, and then I decorated with the holly and berries. I used some Silver Spoon writing icing in red and green which worked really well because the nozzles were tiny so great for precision.

The rest of the cookies were simply drizzled with icing which I think makes them look rather professional and equally yummy. The melted snowman I made above makes me laugh but probably not the best if you're going for a sophisticated look! I simply used 3 different circle cutters and piled the cookies on top of eachother.

RECIPE:

 9oz plain flour
3oz self raising flour
1tsp bicarb
2tsp ground ginger
1tsp ground cinnamon
4.5oz butter
6oz light brown sugar
1 egg
4tbsp golden syrup

Mix up the dry ingredients and then blend in a food processor with the butter until it looks like breadcrumbs. Mix the egg with the golden syrup then add to the mix and pulse until it becomes a dough. Lightly knead, then wrap in clingfilm and chill. The dough is very sticky, so make sure you chill it in the fridge before rolling it out or it's a right nightmare! I had to use a lot of flour to stop mine sticking everywhere too. Heat oven to 180c and bake for 10-12 minutes.
Cool on a rack, then devour!

What do you think of my ginger christmas pudding cookies? xo