Gingerbread Christmas Trees

So this is Christmas.........and what have you done? Well one thing is for sure, M and B haven't done much blogging! So much has happened the last couple of months, we both neglected the blog - sorry guys! B has been busy 'baking' her own little person though, and is due any day now and M has been, well, busy being a mum, a friend, a sister, a wife, a daughter......and everything in between.

Anyway, we thought we'd kick off our return to the blog with some Christmas baking. We both love Christmas and can't wait for our mum's Christmas cake to be ready (I think it's at the soaking in booze stage!), we can't wait to sink our teeth into some fruit mince pies, gobble up some jam cookies and we especially can't wait to have some Christmas baby cuddles with B's little person.  

Gingerbread makes such a good gift any time of the year, and especially at this time of year. We've given homemade gingerbread men as B's gift to her wedding guests and her more recent baby shower guests (iced in the appropriate theme of course!) and I think it makes a lovely gift for our hardworking teachers at the end of the school year. 

Gingerbread Trees

This is the same recipe that I have used for the gingerbread men we have made previously. I made 4 batches and that made around 8 trees and I had left over stars.

165g butter
1/2 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
1 egg yolk
2 1/2 plain flour
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
3 teaspoons ginger
3 tablespoons golden syrup

Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy, add edd yolk, beat well. Gradually add sifted dry ingredients and syrup, mix well. Knead lightly.
Divide dough and then roll each portions between two sheets of baking paper to about 3-4mm thickness. I have a set of star cutters that were 5 different sizes.

I allowed 3 of the same size stars for each tree, I guess it just depends on how high you want your tree to end up.

I used 2 quanities of the egg white icing below. (royal icing)

11/2 cups of pure icing sugar
1 egg white
4 drops lemon juice
food colouring optonal

Sift icing sugar. Beat egg white lightly in a small bowl, using a wooden spoon. Add icing sugar, one tablespoon at a time, beating well after each addition. When it reaches piping consistency, beat in lemon juice.

I used some of those coloured little cachous balls to decorate, but you could use anything you want. Then I dusted the tree with some icing sugar at the end.

To stick all your stars together just add some of your royal icing between each star. Also use the icing to add any of your decorations.

Enjoy!

M
x