Christmas gifts: gingerbread "stained glass" cookies

For the past few years I have made some little gifts for Sophie to give to her school friends (see last year's marshmallow snowmen and 2011's reindeer noses).

This year, time has been limited so I decided that Sophie and Justin could help me make gingerbread window cookies. This is something I did a very long time ago with the guides and I still think they are very pretty and surprisingly simple.

I made some gingerbread dough and chilled it until the kids came home from school. Then they rolled and cut out lots of cookies, in christmas tree, snowflake and holly leaf shapes, The christmas tree cutter was one I already had for making window cookies and is designed to cut the big and little tree in one go but the snowflake and holly leaf cutters are solid and so we cut a small flower from the middle of each cookie.

I bought some Foxes Glacier fruit sweets and then popped similar colours into freezer bags and bashed them to bits. It is okay to have a few lumps in it still. A word of warning on this bit though - make sure you have an old chopping board or similar underneath. And use a hammer! My kitchen table now has a multitude of little dents from these very solid sweets, as does our kiddies wooden rolling pin!

I then sprinkled the crushed sweets into the hole in the middle of each cookie, mixing some of the colours for a really pretty effect. The gingerbread was then cooked for about 12 minutes and hey presto, out came some beautiful "stained glass" christmas cookies.

This is the recipe I used for the gingerbread:

Gingerbread "stained glass" cookies

350g plain flour
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
2 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground cinnamon
125g butter
175g light soft brown sugar
1 free-range egg
4 tbsp golden syrup

Coloured boiled sweets (such as Foxes Glacier Fruits) - crushed into small pieces

Sift together the flour, bicarbonate of soda, ginger and cinnamon and pour into the bowl of a food processor. Add the butter and blend until the mix looks like breadcrumbs. Stir in the sugar.

Lightly beat the egg and golden syrup together, add to the food processor and pulse until the mixture clumps together. (I had trouble with the dough coming together here so I tipped it out into a bigger bowl and mixed together by hand which took a good 5 minutes). Tip the dough out, knead briefly until smooth, wrap in clingfim and leave to chill in the fridge for 15 minutes.

Preheat the oven to Gas mark 4.5 or 180C. Grease the baking tray thoroughly (this is important as I forgot to do this and one set of cookies stuck to the tray - there was no way to get the stained glass bit off the tray!)

Roll the dough out to a 0.5cm/¼in thickness on a lightly floured surface. Using cutters, cut out the shapes you want, including the hole in the middle and place on the baking tray, leaving a gap between them. Make sure the hole is a good size as this shrinks when the gingerbread bakes.

If you would like to use these as hanging decorations, make a small hole in one end of the cookie before baking. You should then be able to thread a piece of ribbon through once it is cooked.

Carefully sprinkle the crushed sweets into the holes in the middles of the gingerbread cookies. You can be creative and mix the colours, as you can see I did with the christmas tree and the snowflake.

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. It is helpful to flex the baking tray or sheet a little to "pop" the gingerbread cookies off.

© 2013 Nicola Noble: Please observe the rules of copyright and blog etiquette. If you use my ideas or images, please link back to my blog. And do let me know - I'd love to take a look.

Vanilla and chocolate biscuits

I found this simple recipe years ago (courtesy of Sainsbury's) and have made it a couple of times. I whipped up a batch this week when I ran out of after-school snacks for the kiddies: they didn't like the chocolate version which meant I had to eat them - what a shame!!  I made stars but the original recipe suggests hearts, and I thought I'd share as they will make lovely for Valentine's Day gifts.

Vanilla and Chocolate Love Heart Biscuits

Makes about 25 biscuits

Ingredients

110g butter, softened
55g golden caster sugar
few drops of good vanilla extract
175g plain flour
1-2 tbsp milk
2 tbsp cocoa powder

Turn the oven to 180°C, fan 160°C, gas mark 5. Cut two pieces of baking paper to fit two baking trays.

Beat together the softened butter and sugar until pale and creamy. Add the flour with the milk and using your hands or a spoon mix everything together to make a ball of dough.

Sprinkle a little flour onto the table. Split the dough in half and put one half on to the floured table. Add the cocoa powder to the bowl and using your hands knead the dough to mix in the cocoa powder.

Break the vanilla dough in half and roll out one piece until it is about 5mm thick. Using heart cutters, cut out heart biscuits. Using a very small heart cutter and cut small hearts out of the middle of each of the biscuits.

Break the chocolate dough in half, roll out and cut some small hearts to fit inside the big vanilla hearts – you will need to gently press the small heart into the big hearts to make sure that they stick together in the oven (this is really important so that they cook together). Carry on making the biscuits to any design you choose. Carefully use a palette knife or cake slice to help you move the biscuits to the tray.

Bake for 8 minutes until the biscuits are just golden and cooked – the time will vary depending on how big they are. Put the biscuits onto a cooling rack and leave to cool.

© 2013 Nicola Noble: The heart biscuits image courtesy of Sainsbury's. Please observe the rules of copyright and blog etiquette. If you use my ideas or images, please link back to my blog. And do let me know - I'd love to take a look. 

Rhubarb, rhubarb, rhubarb

One of the few benefits of having a shady garden is that my rhubarb plant loves it and with all this rain we've had recently I was able to get some lovely fat, beautiful rosy stalks which I chopped and froze within minutes of plucking from the garden.

We went to someone's house for dinner on Saturday and I offered to take pudding so thought I would do a twist on my gluten-free crumble (see my previous blog here).

I put the frozen rhubarb in a saucepan with quite a lot of sugar and warmed it very gently until the rhubarb had softened but not disintegrated and then drained the lovely rhubarb juice off into a jug.

I baked the ginger gluten-free biscuits (ginger and rhubarb are just so good together) and crumbled them up once they were cool.

I mixed icing sugar and delicious pink rhubarb juice into some mascarpone which I then swirled through the chunks of cooked rhubarb, before topping with the biscuit crumble to create a rhubarb fool crumble. The resulting pudding was delicious.

Two things I would change for next time: I would try to get some glass sundae dishes so you could see the rosy pink rhubarb swirled with mascarpone under the crumble; and I would add more rhubarb juice to the mascarpone - I was worried about making it too runny but once the puddings had sat for a while it all thickened up a bit. Alternatively, I could have taken the rhubarb juice to pour over the top before eating!

Another recipe I tried some time ago using the rhubarb was apple rhubarb bread. I baked this using gluten free flour and the apple and rhubarb kept it moist. The original recipes calls for finely chopped rhubarb but I found that it became lost in the baked cake and next time I will keep bigger chunks so I can actually tell that there is rhubarb in the cake. 

Another recipe that may work well with rhubarb are quick and easy biscuits called diggles. I have made these several time with blackberries but I can see rhubarb working for a slightly more adult version.

I have put the recipes below. If you have your own rhubarb I hope you enjoy making some of these and if you don't have your own plant make sure you get hold of some rhubarb while it's in season.

Rhubarb fool crumble

Ingredients
rhubarb

ginger fairings (see here for the recipe)

mascarpone

icing sugar

juice from the stewed rhubarb

Gently stew the rhubarb until soft but still holding shape. Drain off the juice into a jug and keep to one side. Allow to cool. 

Mix a small amount of icing sugar with the mascarpone (to taste) and add some of the reserved rhubarb juice until it's the consistency of single cream.

Place some rhubarb into individual dishes and swirl the mascapone cream through. Crumble the ginger fairings over the top to finish and serve with a jug of the rhubarb juice.

Apple rhubarb bread

Ingredients
1.5 cups chopped rhubarb
1.5 cups chopped apples
1.5 cups brown sugar
0.5 cup vegetable oil
1 tsp vanilla
4 eggs
3 cups flour
1 cup chopped nuts
3.5 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a large bowl, combine brown sugar, eggs and vegetable oil. Stir in the rhubarb, apples and vanilla.

In a separate bowl sift together the baking powder, salt and flour. Add the wet mixture to the flour mixture and stir until just moistened.

Stir in the finely chopped nuts and pour into a greased baking pan. Bake at 350 degrees, for 50 – 60 minutes or until a toothpick comes clean.

Remove bread from pan, cool on a wire or wooden rack and wrap for storage.

Rhubarb diggles

Makes 12
Rhubarb (in small chunks)
1tbsp granulated sugar
85g butter or margarine
225g self-raising flour
85g caster sugar
1 medium egg, beaten

Lightly cook the rhubarb and stir in the sugar to coat the pieces. Set aside.

Preheat the oven to 200°C/400°F/gas mark 6.

Rub butter into the flour in a bowl. Add caster sugar and make a well in the centre. Add the egg to the well. Mix until you have formed a dough.

Break off 12 pieces and shape into rough balls the size of a large walnut. Place on to silicone paper on a baking tray, leaving a good gap between them. Make a dent in the top with the end of a wooden spoon, then spoon in a couple of pieces of rhubarb.

Bake for approximately 12 minutes until just golden. Remove and cool.

NB. the original recipe uses blueberries but blackberries also work very well

© 2012 Nicola Noble: Please observe the rules of copyright and blog etiquette. If you use my ideas or images, please link back to my blog. And do let me know - I'd love to take a look.

The trials and tribulations of a shortbread mould!

I was given/bought myself a shortbread mould last Christmas. It is such a pretty mould and I had great visions of creating shortbread that would not only taste amazing but look beautiful too - perfect homemade Christmas gifts for years to come! But, as with all these things, the mould languished at the back of my cupboard for the last six months unused but not forgotten!

Then last week I decided I really was going to make this beautiful shortbread. I got a recipe for orange shortbread from my mum (I remember having this as a child) and had a go at making my very first batch. Never one to do things by half, I also decided to make this gluten free. Oh dear - the shortbread tasted good but the mould was a disaster! I followed the instructions on the box and pushed the shortbread mix into the mould then left it to chill for 30 minutes. But when I then tried to turn the shortbread out of the mould onto a baking tray it refused to budge. No amount of coaxing could get it out in anything but a crumbled mess. I even put it in again, chilled it for another 30 minutes and had another go and it would not come out! So I ended up scraping it all out and creating a rough circle by hand. So disappointing :o(

I phoned Tesco to complain that their product was rubbish and got through to a Scottish customer service guy who said that as I had bought the product at Christmas I wouldn't be entitled to a refund (I don't agree with him since the mould is not fit for purpose if you can't get the shortbread out , but that would be a whole other story!) We then ended up having a long discussion about shortbread and it
turned out that he makes shortbread all the time and that his two favourite shortbread recipes included almond essence and vanilla essence and coconut ...

Not one for giving in easily, I did a bit of research on the web and decided to have another go. Most of the information on shortbread moulds were for ones that you bake the shortbread in but my mould clearly said not to be used in the oven! So this time, I carefully washed and dried the mould, dusted it with cornflour very thoroughly, pressed the shortbread in very well and left it to chill in the fridge for a very long time (a couple of hours). I also made it with regular wheat flour and decided to add coconut as per Mr Tesco.

This time when I tried to remove the shortbread, I ran a knife around the outside edge several times, tapped the bottom forcefully a large number of times and used a fish slice to try to lift it carefully. Two small sections broke away but then success: the rest of the dough popped out onto the baking sheet. I was able to push the two broken bits back onto the rest and there I had a fairly decent looking shortbread ready for baking.

I'm still not sure how long to cook the shortbread for - most recipes say to remove it before it goes golden but both my shortbreads seemed to be a bit crumbly. Maybe my expectations should be different between home made and shop bought shortbreads. The pattern did show through on this one but still not as much as I had hoped. It may be different without the coconut but we all enjoyed the taste of this in it so it was worth including.

The final verdict? I won't be having a fight with Tesco about fit for purpose goods just yet as I think that with more use the mould and I will develop a better relationship. But I wouldn't recommend buying a non-bakeable mould to anyone thinking about it - it really isn't as easy as the instructions on the back make out!

© 2012 Nicola Noble: Please observe the rules of copyright and blog etiquette. If you use my ideas or images, please link back to my blog. And do let me know - I'd love to take a look.

At last - I've found a yummy gluten free crumble!

I don't know about you, but I have had real trouble making a nice gluten free crumble. I have tried many times to make a crumble topping using gluten free flour and all it ever does is go black and slightly burnt on top. I have doubled up on the amount of butter in an attempt to get it crumbly rather than floury; I have tried to cover it to stop it burning; I have added oats in an attempt to change the texture but none of these ever result in a crumble that even comes close to a golden, crumbly crumble using normal flour!

So in a moment of inspiration, I decided to try baking gluten free biscuits and then breaking these up on top of the filling and IT WORKED!!

My mum used to bake a biscuit called a ginger fairing (you can tell it's an old recipe as it's still in ounces!) and I have played with these recently using gluten free flour and they come out just as delicious. So for the apple crumble I was making, I substituted the ginger with cinnamon and added some oats for a slightly different texture, baked the biscuits then crumbled them on top of the apple filling and warmed them up again in the oven.

It was so delicious I made it again this weekend with a fresh from the garden rhubarb filling and this time I was a bit rougher with the baked biscuits and crumbled them much more so that there were no gaps across the top of the pudding. Sadly we ate them all before I could take a photograph!

Below is the recipe for the biscuits:

Ginger Fairings

Makes about 12 biscuits
4 oz butter
1 level tablespoon golden syrup
6 oz self-raising flour
pinch of bicarbonate of soda
1 level teaspoon ground ginger or cinnamon
3 oz caster sugar
2 tablespoons rolled oats (optional) 

Melt the syrup and butter over a low heat. Sift the flour, bicarbonate of soda and ground ginger/cinnamon together, add the sugar and mix into the melted butter. I also added the 2 tablespoons of rolled oats at this point.

Roll a rounded teaspoon of mixture into a ball in your hands. Place the balls fairly well apart on an ungreased baking tray. Bake on the centre shelf of a moderately hot oven (375°F, 190°C, gas mark 5) for 12 to 15 minutes or until cooked. Leave to cool slightly before removing them from the baking tray.

I know it is going to become a regular addition to our menu.

© 2012 Nicola Noble: Please observe the rules of copyright and blog etiquette. If you use my ideas or images, please link back to my blog. And do let me know - I'd love to take a look.

A bit of a Star Wars theme going on ...

There is a price to pay for living with a Star Wars mad 40 something year old: I receive e-mails throughout the year with photos of amazing Star Wars birthday cakes and the related anticipation of one such masterpiece appearing for his birthday. In previous years I have managed to "ignore" the constant trickle of hints but this year I was asked specifically to create a Star Wars cake.

The brief: just a simple Star Wars recreation of the battle of Hoth, complete with power generator and an AT-AT walker. Oh, and it should include Jelly-Belly jelly beans!! So nothing too complicated then? And all this with a week to do it ...

First step - scour the web for images for inspiration. Interestingly very few were stills from the film which surprised me, and most were other peoples' physical recreations of the battle scene (I should be thankful that my other half is not quite as nerdy as those people) which wasn't very helpful for my need to be as accurate as my skills allow (now who's the nerd?). I did find some useful images which helped formulate the design and off I went.

I made a 9" gluten free vanilla sponge and filled and coated with a lime and desiccated coconut buttercream (a flavour experiment which worked very well). I then covered the cake and board in one go with white fondant. Next step was to create the snowy crevasses, then make the power generator. I cut eight large thick circles in grey fondant, used a smaller circle cutter to mark the inner circle and added lots of texture before sandwiching them together into 4 pairs. I used two pieces of spaghetti to stand each circle upright and then pushed a long piece of spaghetti through the middle of the circles and cylinders of fondant between each circle. I finished off the power generator with some grey supports.

A standing AT-AT walker was not going to be possible in the timescale, as I would have had to make it in sections and let each section dry before putting it all together; so I opted for the fallen one which I think came out well. I also added a gun turret positioned in the snowy crevasses.

As I mentioned earlier, the brief included Jelly-Belly jelly beans and as I had't included these in the sponge itself I had to find a way to include them in the decoration. I decided to use white ones (incidentally these are coconut so fitted very well with the flavour of the buttercream!) and turn them into Rebel Alliance fighters. Smiley faces drawn with an edible ink pen, brown hats, snow goggles and a black gun and my guys were in place. Mr "I want a storm trooper and some more realistic (like in the film) people" didn't seem that impressed but they made me smile every time I looked at them so they were staying!

The finishing touches of his name in Star Wars writing (template created on the computer, printed, cut out and placed on grey fondant which I then cut to shape) and some edible snow like sprinkles and glitter and the cake was finished ...

As it was also Star Wars day recently (May the fourth be with you) and we had a packet of gingerbread dough in the fridge that the kiddies had persuaded Daddy to buy for them, we decided to use the fantastic Star Wars cookie cutters that we bought last year on our holiday in Florida.

I helped them roll the dough out and they both picked two cutters each and cut and plunged Yoda, Darth Vader, Boba Fett and a stormtrooper.

The baked gingerbread cookies came out very well and they enjoyed eating them. Perhaps another time (when they are a bit older) we might also have a go at icing them ...

© 2012 Nicola Noble: Please observe the rules of copyright and blog etiquette. If you use my ideas or images, please link back to my blog. And do let me know - I'd love to take a look.

Santa got stuck

Sophie was given a chocolate biscuit house kit for Christmas and we made it today. It is such a cute gift - a complete kit of (loosely) interlocking chocolate biscuits and a selection of sweets and icing flowers/stars/holly leaves to decorate it, plus the finishing touch of Santa's feet on a cocktail stick to put on the roof.

The construction of the biscuit house was moderately tricky and so I did most of this for Sophie but then she was in charge of the artistic bit and I was impressed by her confidence in going off plan. I iced and she placed and the end result was a success.

We just have to wait to show Nana tomorrow (the gift came from her) and then we can eat it - yummm.

If you are interested the kit came from The Village Workshop and you can order a variety of biscuit house kits from their website http://www.villageworkshop.co.uk/

Halloween success

Well, my earlier concerns about making too many skeleton biscuits were unfounded as I managed to shift over 50 biscuits in about 30 minutes!! And all my hard work was worth it when I heard a number of the trick or treaters say "oooh cookies, cool!"

Mind you, Justin managed to get through a few of them - he just couldn't understand why we were giving the biscuits to people at the door and yet he wasn't allowed them. He did manage to sneak a few in when the bowl got low enough for him to reach in ...

Too many projects?

To be honest, this morning I thought there was no chance I was going to finish the projects planned for this week but tonight I am quietly proud of myself!

The puppet theatre is finished, with curtains (courtesy of my mum and her sewing machine) and interchangeable scenery backdrops drawn by Sophie. I had a few issues on how to attach the backdrops and initially tried punching holes along the top and hooking the backdrops onto unfolded paperclips. Unfortunately, every time Sophie moved her hand into place in the theatre the backdrop lifted up and fell off the hooks. So I had to rethink it and today I put loops of paper along the back of the backdrops, cut a piece of garden cane to size and attached two loops of string to either side at the back to hang it through. Sophie hasn't tried it yet but I am pretty confident that this will hold the scenery in place.

Next on our list of projects was completing the Halloween treats. These turned out really well and Sophie even had a go at piping some of the skeletons onto the biscuits (top left of the photo). For a four and a half year old's first attempt at icing I was really impressed - I guess she must have inherited my creative genes. She also helped me flood the heads with icing and once this was dry I piped the eyes and mouths on. So our army of skeletons are ready for the trick or treaters and if 50+ kids don't descend on our house on Sunday night I will take some biscuits along to my cake decorating course on Monday night and feed my children the rest.

Finally, late this afternoon I set to and carved a jack o'lantern from our pumpkin. I found a great template online and created a happy chappy to cheer us up on Halloween. It's the first time I have used a template and I am really pleased with the end result. I remembered from previous years that it is too difficult to cut enough pumpkin flesh out of the small pumpkin for any sort of cooking so the pumpkin soup idea has been abandoned. But I have saved the pumpkin seeds and I need to decide what to do with them - roast them or leave them to dry for Sophie to glue onto pictures. 

Half term almost over and I am starting to think about the next few projects coming up. But perhaps I'll just have a few days off and enjoy the rest with Sophie back at school!

More half term fun

Determined to achieve success in at least one of my two planned activities this week, last night I set to with a cardboard box, craft knife, glue and blue paper and created a small puppet theatre. Sophie was sadly unimpressed with my effort but seemed much happier once she was let loose with the stickers.

Still to do are some scenery panels to go on the angled bits and some curtains to pull across the front. We also finished the remaining two hand puppets and they are really cute.

Also today we made an army of gingerbread men and later this week I hope to transform them into skeletons. Obviously there were a few casualties and both children were more than happy to test them!

Half term fun

So it's half term and I have two craft activities planned to do with Sophie this week.

The first one is to help Sophie make some glove puppets that she has, and to create a mini theatre for her so that she can put on a show for us at the end of the week. We have managed to make two of the four puppets today and will hopefully do the other two tomorrow. That leaves us Thursday and Friday to make the theatre. I have a small box and am planning to cover it inside and out and make some sort of curtains that can be drawn across the front.

The second activity is to prepare a few things for Halloween. I have a pumpkin that I would like to carve and hopefully make something edible from the flesh (Sophie has been reading a book called Pumpkin Soup at school and has been asking me when she will get to have it so maybe that's what I'll make). I have also decided to make my own treats for the trick or treaters - I am thinking of green/red marbled mini cupcakes with gruesome icing and jelly worms coming out the top or skeleton biscuits (idea "borrowed" from a shop near us) - I have some royal icing left from last week so could use that up.

Let's see what we manage to achieve in a week ...