A post for Miss A - Gingerbread

This post is on behalf of Miss A, who while sitting around the table decorating some home baked gingerbread for our playgroup christmas party the other day, piped up and said, "Mum, you should take some photo's and put them on your blog with the recipe so everyone can see how fantastic they are."

So for you, my clever, very Switched On little girl, who constantly amazes me with your awareness, insight and thoughts, here is our Gingerbread..................

I have tried several different gingerbread recipes because I am always searching for treats I can bake for Miss B, who is allergic to dairy, egg and nuts and this one is by far the best. 

This gingerbread recipe called for butter, which I substituted for margarine. Miss B can tolerate the small amount of dairy in margarine thank God which gives me high hopes that like Sheridan's little one, Miss B just might grow out of at least the dairy allergy.

If you want to make your own here's how (please note this makes a LARGE batch of gingerbread.  I like to divide the batch into three and freeze two portions for later use):

Gingerbread

Put 1 1/2 cups of treacle, 1 cup packed brown sugar, 1/2 cup warm water and 200g melted margarine (butter) in a large bowl and stir until well combined.

Sift 7 cups of plain flour, 2 tsp bi-carb soda, 1 tsp salt, 1 tsp ground allspice, 1 tsp ground ginger, 1 tsp ground cloves and 1 tsp ground cinnamon over the treacle mixture, then mix to a soft dough. 

Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth.

Divide dough into thirds.  Here is where I roll two portions into logs, wrap seperately in greaseproof paper and put them into labelled freezer bags for later use.

Press remaining portion into a disc shape, wrap in greaseproof paper and refrigerate for 2 hours or until firm enough to roll out.

Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius then line trays with baking paper.

Roll dough out on a floured surface until 5mm thick.  Cut into desired shapes and place on trays.

Bake for 10-15 minutes or until firm to the touch.  Stand trays for 10 minutes before removing to wire racks to cool.

To decorate add a little water at a time to a cup of icing mixture stirring until you get a nice smooth but thick paste.  If you add too much water just add a little more icing mixture to thicken.  Spoon mixture into a zip lock sandwich bag and snip off just a tiny corner to make your own piping bag.  Pipe icing onto gingerbread as desired and sprinkle with hundreds and thousands before icing sets.

Credit must be given to the Christmas 2009 edition of Family Circle for this recipe - out now, go get yourself a copy!

Now coming from someone who generally doesn't like anything with ginger in it, these are some tasty biscuits!!