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Tuesday 29 November 2016

Gingerbread Men

Bake #3: Gingerbread Men


Hi everyone! So it has finally been starting to feel very Christmassy outside... there is hoar frost on the trees and there is swirling snow. And just so, I have been having a craving to start some holiday baking... just in time for my usual blog entry! (More or less on time) :)

So this week's bake is a fun one! I decided I would switch from baked bread goodies and have a go at some Christmas cookies... Mary Berry's Gingerbread Men recipe from the Baking Bible pages 258-259. As usual, I won't be including the recipe, but will describe the process and any substitutions that I had to make. 





Starting off, oven first, always important! And I promise I am remembering to do that much more easily, Mary Berry! So on the oven goes... her recipe did call for 190 degree C, which converted to 375 degree F. This time, I did not use the fan in the oven - I just put it on at a normal bake. Which still ended up being very much on the hot side, and I ended up reducing my baking time... but I will talk about that later. :) 

I felt very at ease with this recipe, it was pretty straightforward for the most part. The smell of ginger was wonderful! I took my time just smelling the ingredients and creating the dough. The one substitution I made in this recipe was in exchange of muscovado sugar, I used light golden brown sugar. Sometimes I google! I had never heard of muscovado sugar, which was what was really called for in the recipe. So I looked up substitutions, and most people had said that a light brown sugar works just as well. I mixed the dry ingredients before adding the wet, in order to make the dough. The recipe calls for golden syrup, so I wanted to include a photo of the type of golden syrup I used. I believe it is British, it is called "Lyle's Golden Syrup." I found it in The Bulk Barn. I think you would be able to use corn syrup as a substitution. Golden Syrup has a milder flavour, but is still sweet, and blends in nicely into your baked goods. Afterwards, I was starting to wonder if I actually could have added maple syrup! Next time, perhaps?!




The dough took a little while to form, and was quite crumbly. I was actually starting to lose faith that it would come together. So if you try this recipe, stick at it! It will form into a ball. It just seemed to take a little while for the syrup to work in and become oily enough to form the cookie dough. Make sure to flour the counter, so the dough doesn't stick! I lost a few heads off my gingerbread men, and then had to rework and roll out the dough again. Mary called for 1/4" thickness, but I think they could have been a little thicker maybe? It wouldn't hurt anyways. I cut out approximately 22 gingerbread men, very close to what Mary called for. She said I should end up with 20 gingerbread men. 

I placed the gingerbread men on greased cookie sheets, and decorated them. You can do this however you'd like! Mary recommended currants to decorate the eyes, and buttons. They tasted nice with the gingerbread, but some of the currants fell out, leaving the poor things eyeless! Unless I hadn't pressed them in hard enough into the dough. I later found that mini chocolate chips worked great, they didn't melt too much, but melted just enough to stay on the cookies. I used sprinkles I found in The Bulk Barn. They have a great selection of snowflakes, gingerbread men sprinkles, and a variety of red and green ones too. You could even ice them after they have cooled if you would like, or lightly dust them with icing sugar. Completely up to you!







You can see with how the ones in the tin turned out! Some were almost burned, 10 - 12 minutes was too long for them. After a few tries, I found that at 375 degrees F,  8 minutes was a perfect time. Because they were so thin, the baking time didn't take very long at all. However, my slightly burned ones weren't lost, they were great dunked in our coffees! So don't throw them away! :) (That is if this happens to you!)



So all in all, another enjoyable bake. So far, all my bakes have been, which is boosting me on to keep going! I am loving this challenge, and learning a lot week by week. Still, my cleanup needs work! And I haven't been brave enough to post any photos from near the kitchen sink... so if you'll stick with me I will show you next week. Then hopefully I can improve on that too! :) This recipe was easy to follow, just make sure you keep an eye on your ovens... maybe could even bake them at 350 degrees F, with the fan on, with 10 - 12 minutes or slightly longer. Always a trial and error it seems. But, nice and gingery flavour, but not too strong. If I was making them again, I would definitely use the mini chocolate chips instead of currants. They just seemed to stick better, for me anyways. 

I hope you are all getting into Christmas baking too! I will have a look for another Christmassy recipe from Mary Berry for next time. Fun bake this time, Mary! Thank you.

See you all in 2 weeks or so, I will end with "Ready, Set, BAKE!"

~*Next bake coming soon*~

p.s. After having another few goes at this recipe, I decided to try out some more cookie cutter shapes. I used baking M & M's this time around for the butterfly wings and flower centers.






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