Gingerbread hearts
The dough is extremely well behaved and will handle no end of rolling and re-rolling. They are delicately flavoured with ginger, orange and a touch of cloves and can be rolled out super thin without shattering.
Adapted from a Delia Smith recipe in Delia's Cakes
- Prep Time: 45 mins
- Cook Time: 15 mins
- Total Time: 1 hour (+ decorating)
- Yield: About 15 1x
- Category: Cookies
- Method: Oven baked
- Cuisine: British
Ingredients
Scale
- 75g (3oz) light brown soft sugar
- 2 tablespoons golden syrup
- 1 tablespoon black treacle
- 1 tablespoon water
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon ground ginger
- pinch of ground cloves
- finely grated zest of half an orange
- 95g (3 1/2 oz) block butter (cut into lumps)
- ½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
- 225g (8oz) plain flour
- icing sugar (to make icing)
- Smarties to decorate
- 2 greased baking sheets
- cutters to make your shape of choice
Instructions
- Put the sugar, syrup, treacle, water, spices and zest together in a large saucepan. Then bring them to boiling point, stirring all the time.
- Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the butter and the bicarbonate of soda.
- Next stir in the the flour gradually until you have a smooth, manageable dough.
- Now leave the dough covered in a cool place to become firm (about 30 minutes).
- Preheat the oven to 180°C/160°C Fan/350ºF (gas mark 4).
- Now roll out the dough to 3mm thick on a lightly floured surface and cut out your shapes of choice. Arrange them on a lightly greased baking sheet (leaving a little space for expansion) and bake for 10-15 minutes until the biscuits feel a little firm but are not browned.
- Leave them to completely cool on the baking sheet for a few minutes before transferring them to a wire cooling rack.
- To decorate, use the icing sugar to make stiff icing and pipe it onto the gingerbread to secure the Smarties.
Keywords: celebration, gifts, cute
Find it online: https://marmaladeandme.com/gingerbread-hearts/
