Spiced Christmas Biscuits

Sunday 23 November 2014 ·


So it may be a little early to be posting Christmas recipes but lets be honest we all love the festive season so why not start to enjoy it a little earlier than usual? One of my favourite things to make is always spiced biscuits which I often give as little gifts to friends and family but are also work great as tree decorations! These biscuits are super simple and you could even rustle up a double size batch and keep half of the dough wrapped in cling film for a week or so until you need to make the inevitable second batch! 


Ingredients
- 175g dark muscavado sugar
- 100g butter
- 85g golden syrup 
- 2tsp ground ginger
- 1tsp ground cinnamon
- 350g plain flour 
- 1tsp bicarbonate of soda
- 1 egg 
- icing sugar (to decorate) 
- silver balls / hundreds and thousands (to decorate) 

Method
1. Heat the sugar, butter and golden syrup in a bowl  in the microwave until melted. 

TIP: Do this in 10 second blasts, and stir in between until it's all melted to avoid burning the sugar. 

2. Mix the ginger, cinnamon and plain flour in a bowl then make a well in the centre for the wet ingredients. 

3. Dissolve the bicarbonate of soda in 1tsp cold water and pour into the well in the dry ingredients, followed by the sugar, butter and golden syrup mixture and egg (lightly beaten). 

4. Mix together all of the ingredients until you have a soft dough and then wrap the mixture in cling film and place in the fridge for 40-60 minutes so it can firm up a little. 

TIP: Use a wooden spoon for this not an electric whisk. It may take a little longer and be more effort but it'll be worth it as the whisk often gets clogged with the dough making it more trouble than it's worth.

5. Whilst waiting, preheat the oven to 170 degrees celsius. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and roll out until around 0.5cm thick and cut into shapes using cutters, transferring them to a baking tray (lined with greaseproof paper) as you go. If you want to use them as decorations make sure to pierce a hole through the dough using a skewer. 

7. Pop them into the middle of the oven for 12-15minutes or until they are golden brown when they should be transferred to a wire rack to cool. 

8. Now to decorate them. Mix up the icing - make sure to keep it nice and thick so you have control over where you place it, and decorate your biscuits however you like. To be honest I really like how these biscuits look when they  aren't decorated!

Now finally it's time to try one or get them hung up on the tree! Unfortunately I can't hang them on my tree as one of our numerous cats would no doubt pull them off and have a little feast! 

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