Gingerbread Men & Reindeer

Santa is making a visit at my daughters Mother and Toddler group tomorrow. She is only 15 months old so there is not much excitement about it for her but I am a little, rekindling my childhood spirit a bit 😉

There will be a little party for the kiddies with goodies, music and games. This gives me an opportunity to bake my gingerbread men in army quantities 🙂

These gingerbread men are deliciously gingery and the treacle gives them a depth of flavour, really brings out the spices.

Ingredients

For the cake:

• 400g plain flour
• ¾ tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 2tsp ground ginger
• 2tsp ground cinnamon
• ½ tsp ground allspice
• ¼ tsp ground nutmeg
• ½ tsp salt
• 180g unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 125g soft dark brown sugar or dark muscovado sugar
• 1 egg
• 125g black treacle

For the royal icing:

• 1 egg white
• ½ tsp freshly squeezed lemon juice
• 310g icing sugar, sifted
• food colouring, optional
• gingerbread biscuit cutters
• a baking tray, lined with greaseproof paper

• Milk Chocolate, melted if making the Reindeer

Method

For the cake:

1. Sift together the flour, bicarbonate of soda, ginger, cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg and salt in a large bowl and set aside.
2. Put the butter and sugars in a free standing electric mixer with a paddle attachment (or use a handheld electric whisk) and cream on slow speed until light and fluffy. Turn the mixer up to medium speed and beat in the egg and treacle, scraping the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula to get any unmixed ingredients from the side of the bowl.
3. Turn the mixer back down to slow speed and slowly add the flour mixture a couple of tablespoons at a time, stopping often to scrape any unmixed ingredients from the side of the bowl with a rubber spatula. Once a dough has formed, take it out of the mixer, divide into 3 and wrap each piece in clingfilm.
4. Leave to rest overnight in the fridge.
5. When you are ready to bake the cookies, preheat the oven to 170°C.
6. Take the dough out of the fridge and leave to soften for about 10 minutes. Lightly dust a clean work surface with flour and roll out the dough to a thickness of about 4 mm with a rolling pin. Cut out shapes with the biscuit cutters. Arrange the cookies on the prepared baking trays and bake in the preheated oven for about 10–15 minutes.
7. Leave the cookies to cool slightly on the trays before turning out onto a wire cooling rack to cool completely.

For the royal icing:

1. Beat the egg white and lemon juice together in a free standing electric mixer with a paddle attachment (or use a handheld electric whisk). Gradually start adding the icing sugar, mixing well after each addition to ensure all sugar is incorporated. Whisk until you get stiff peaks. If the icing is too runny, add a little more sugar. Stir in a couple of drops of food colouring, if using, and decorate the cookies.

Pipe the melted chocolate on to the gingerbread men upside down in the shape of a reindeer, using a smartie chocolate sweet for decoration for his nose and pipe two eyes with royal icing.

Merry Christmas & Happy baking,

Bácáil with Love (Bake with Love)