Christmas gingerbread

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

My kitchen certainly smelled a lot like Christmas this past week, with batches of gingerbread and shortbread filling the air with the gorgeous smell of ginger, golden syrup, lemon and butter.

A newly acquired icing kit finally got a workout on my gingerbread shapes, made using my usual tried-and-trusted gingerbread recipe. I think my royal icing was probably a little thicker than it should have been, but it was certainly fun decorating the gingerbread. In fact, I think the use of plain white icing is much more visually effective than our usual coloured icing efforts.

I made only a slight variation to the gingerbread recipe, reducing the brown sugar a little and replacing it with golden syrup to ensure extra crisp biscuits (my favourite!). For a triple batch of gingerbread (yes, I never bake by halves) I think you probably only need one egg white's worth of royal icing, maybe two but certainly not three (oops).



So as 2008 draws to a close, I wish you, dear reader, a wonderful Christmas that is spent with good friends and cherished family. May you celebrate with great food, great company and lots of laughter.


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Recipe: Gingerbread men
Making a gingerbread house