Friday 18 October 2013

Gingerbread Teddies

Hey kids,

Satch here. Last December I went to a wedding where they served the most amazing gingerbread I've ever had. When I spoke to the guy who made it, he said he just followed the BBC good food recipe, so I had to give it a try...albeit 10 months later. As this wasn't for any occasion in particular, I figured I'd just whack a bit of icing on. However, my driving instructor suggested I do superhero gingerbread - how could I refuse? 



As you can see, I don't have cookie cutters in the shape of people, but teddies can still be super! To make these gingerbread teddies you will need: 

350g plain flour, plus extra for rolling out
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
2 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground cinnamon
125g butter (dairy-free, naturally) 
175g light soft brown sugar
1 egg
4 tbsp golden syrup 
Cookie cutters
Icing sugar 
Piping bag

Preheat the oven 180c and line two baking trays with greaseproof paper.

Put your flour, bicarbonate of soda, ginger and cinnamon into a bowl and stir it altogether. The original recipe said to sieve it but I like to walk on the wild side. 

Add the butter and rub it all between your fingers until the mixture looks like breadcrumbs. If you have a food processor, your life will probably be a lot easier than mine! 

Stir in the sugar. 

Lightly beat the egg and golden syrup together, add this to the other ingredients and form it into a dough. 

Knead your dough briefly until it's smooth, then wrap it in cling film and put it in the fridge for 15 minutes.

Cover your surface and rolling pin with flour - the mixture is quite sticky so I found I had to knead a bit more flour in, but that may well be because I overdid it with the golden syrup, who can say? Roll out your dough to about 1/2cm thickness. I experimented with different thicknesses, but the chunkier ones lost their shape and the thinner ones were too hard. 

Bake for 12-15 minutes, or until lightly golden-brown. Leave on the tray for 10 minutes and then move to a wire rack to finish cooling. 

Then, ice on whatever delightful character you'd like! Here are a few I did: 

Hulk, Superman and Spiderman
Sort-of Fred Flintstone and a Blues Brother (I was watching Blues Brothers whilst baking)

Robin, Batman and a very loose interpretation of Two-Face!

And, of course, classic teddy. 
You'll notice a few are missing limbs/not-so teddy-like. These were the ones that were too thick and placed too close together so they merged in the oven. Still, arms are overrated, I find. 

At this point I usually think about what I would do differently next time, but these tasted soooooo good I wouldn't change a thing. Just make sure you get the thickness right and you're good to go! Also, it's a good idea to bake when you're going to see other people at some point - I basically had to demolish these bad boys all by myself. It's a tough job, but someone has to do it.

Until next time, 
Satch x




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