Decorate your tree with beautiful gingerbread Christmas decorations. This gingerbread dough is firm enough for tree decorations Why not let the kids cut out their favourite shapes and decorate with icing and sprinkles.
Worth making even if you don’t want to hang them on the tree – you can just enjoy them with a spiced herbal tea or cordial – yummmmmmm….. You can make them and eat them all year round too, they make delicious biscuits as well as gingerbread Christmas decorations!
Nut Free Vegetarian
Cuisine British
Time > 2 hrs (plus overnight chilling)
Skill Level Newbie
Serves 12
Ingredients
| 375g plain white flour |
| 1/4 tsp baking powder |
| 2 tsp ground ginger |
| 2 tsp ground cinnamon |
| 1/4 tsp ground allspice pimento |
| 1/2 tsp ground black pepper |
| 1/4 tsp salt |
| 80g softened butter |
| 25g light brown sugar |
| 170g honey |
| 1 large egg |
| 170g dark molasses |
| 1/2 tsp water |
| icing sugar for decorating |
| sprinkles for decorating |
| ribbon for hanging |
Method
- Put flour, baking powder, ginger, cinnamon, allspice, black pepper and salt in a large bowl and mix.
- In a separate bowl, using an electric whisk beat butter and brown sugar until fluffy. Then gradually beat in egg, honey, molasses and water until creamy adding a little at a time.
- Add half of the dry mixture into the molasses mixture. Beat until blended and creamy.
- Stir in the remainder of the flour and knead until well blended.
- Tip: If the dough is too crumbly after kneading, add a little oil and knead until it comes back together. Alternatively if it is too sticky, add a little flour.
- It’s best to wrap the dough in a beeswax wrapper and leave in the fridge overnight. This will allow the flavours to infuse. Remove the dough from the fridge 2 hours before baking to allow it to warm up.
- Pre-heat oven to 170 degrees.
- When ready to bake, roll out the dough to a 5mm thickness and cut out your festive shapes.
- Make a hole at the top for hanging decorations. Don’t make the hole too close to the edge of your shape. The end of an empty biro would give you a good ‘hole maker’ – remember to wash, dry and dip in flour before using though otherwise the dough may stick to it.
- Place onto a greased tray and bake for 10 to 15 minutes.
- Remove from oven and leave to cool a little before transferring onto a cooling rack.
- Decorate with icing, sprinkles or just dust with icing sugar. This nis where you can really let your imagination (or the kid’s imagination) run wild!
- Once decorated, thread with ribbons if you’re using your shapes as hanging decorations.
