The girls have really enjoyed watching this year's bake-off - for Lara, some of the skills she sees being shown off on GBBO are now just about within her reach. I think Holly is still at the icing-chaos stage of her baking journey (see below) but it doesn't stop her trying. At present, we spend pretty much every weekend baking something together as a team. This weekend we were testing out a few new halloween bits and pieces that I have been stock-piling for the end of October; the girls always love halloween cakes and treats because of the bright colours.
GINGERBREAD HALLOWEEN COOKIES
INGREDIENTS
80g Dark Brown Soft Sugar
180g Plain Flour
1/2 Teaspoon Bicarb Soda
65g Butter
2 Tablespoons Golden Syrup
1 Heaped Teaspoon Ground Ginger
1/2 Teaspoon Cinnamon
1 Medium Egg
Icing Sugar (I didn't measure mine!)
Orange and Green Food Colouring
Orange and Black Sugar Sprinkles
METHOD
1. Sprinkle the bicarbonate of soda, ginger and cinnamon into the flour and then rub in the butter until it looks like breadcrumbs (Holly said it looked like crumble).
2. Stir in the sugar, making sure that there are no hard lumps of brown sugar.
3. Using a wooden spoon, mix in the golden syrup and egg until it comes together as a very soft and incredibly sticky dough. You will have to use your hands to finally bring it all together (much to Lara's disgust - she hates sticky things!).
4. Wrap the dough in cling film and chill in the fridge for between 15 and 30 minutes.
5. Line 2 or 3 baking trays with non-stick baking parchment. The key here is the non-stick bit. Traditionally my gingerbread biscuits stick like ANYTHING to parchment but we have been converted to Bacofoil Easy Bake Non-Stick Paper which is non-stick on both sides and had produced incredibly results. Highly, highly recommend this stuff.
6. Roll the dough out on a floured surface until it is about 5mm thick. The thinner the better but to be honest, this is such a sticky dough that you should just go with what you find manageable!
7. Cut lots of fun halloween shapes. If you don't have any halloween themed cookie cutters, try a simple circle or star cutter.
8. Place the shapes carefully onto your lined trays, making sure to leave plenty of space between them as the biscuits will grow. Cook in a pre-heated oven at 180 degrees (a little less in a fan oven) for 8 minutes only. If you have lots of trays of biscuits, don't try to squeeze them all into the oven; as it only takes 8 minutes you can cook one tray at a time.
9. When you take the biscuits out of the oven they will still be very soft. Whoosh the entire sheet of baking parchment off onto a cooling tray and allow to cool and harden for at least 10 minutes before attempting to pick them up by hand.
10. Once the biscuits are totally cooled, ice by hand with a mixture made from icing sugar and water. I made white, green and orange and then let the girls loose on it! Lara chose to hand-pipe outlines around her biscuits and then either flooded them with more icing, or piped crazy ghoolish patterns on them. Holly went for the teaspoon and metal spike approach to icing...it still looked great. TOP TIP - put the biscuits onto a sheet of baking parchment (used is fine) when you ice them; this saves a lot of time when cleaning up after the icing chaos.
11. Sprinkle with sugar sprinkles. All the big supermarkets have black, orange and green sprinkles available right now.
I always have a batch of crazy halloween biscuits available on the night to offer to trick or treaters. I think this year they will be gingerbread as these worked brilliantly.
8. Place the shapes carefully onto your lined trays, making sure to leave plenty of space between them as the biscuits will grow. Cook in a pre-heated oven at 180 degrees (a little less in a fan oven) for 8 minutes only. If you have lots of trays of biscuits, don't try to squeeze them all into the oven; as it only takes 8 minutes you can cook one tray at a time.
9. When you take the biscuits out of the oven they will still be very soft. Whoosh the entire sheet of baking parchment off onto a cooling tray and allow to cool and harden for at least 10 minutes before attempting to pick them up by hand.
10. Once the biscuits are totally cooled, ice by hand with a mixture made from icing sugar and water. I made white, green and orange and then let the girls loose on it! Lara chose to hand-pipe outlines around her biscuits and then either flooded them with more icing, or piped crazy ghoolish patterns on them. Holly went for the teaspoon and metal spike approach to icing...it still looked great. TOP TIP - put the biscuits onto a sheet of baking parchment (used is fine) when you ice them; this saves a lot of time when cleaning up after the icing chaos.
11. Sprinkle with sugar sprinkles. All the big supermarkets have black, orange and green sprinkles available right now.
I always have a batch of crazy halloween biscuits available on the night to offer to trick or treaters. I think this year they will be gingerbread as these worked brilliantly.
