Advents 22nd Door: Old Fashioned Gingerbread Cookies

Christmas doesn’t feel like christmas without an afternoon of baking, and gingerbread is my favourite go to for wholesome festive yummies. I love the apothecary fun of mixing so many delicious ingredients together, like making a festive potion; a bit of sweet, a pinch of spice, a sprinkle of sugar and a generous drizzle of honey. The smell that fills the house with the warm familiar seasonal scents of cinnamon and ginger and cloves. 

We have our favourite cookie cutter shapes and a mixture of both pretty and silly ideas of how to decorate them; dala horses, father christmas, holly leaves, stars, trees, snowmen and reindeers, there’s even been a few ‘festive unicorns’ on occasion. 

Thats the fun of them, creative decorating and each unique design and a recipe that can’t go wrong even if you’ve not an ounce of Delia or Nigella in you (I really don’t). 

This year I’ve discovered this diary free, gluten free recipe which we’re giving a try. It looks like it’s got the right amount of sticky and just the right amount of crunch and a great allergy friendly version you can share with everyone. 

This recipe here from Gails bakery is a good one as is this one here. But if you fancy a bit of a kitchen bake off, you can always try a gingerbread house. 

Kaley at the Kitchen Macabe has the most incredibly divine recipes including her latest Lavender and vanilla hot chocolate. Her inspiring instagram feed is a must and synod trying to move away from processed food an towards a more nutrient rich and wholesome kitchen table will love the twists Kayley sons on well known recipes as well as new!

Start your inspiration with these gingerbread yummies here

xx

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Monday Makery - Gingerbread Family

Gingerbread Family

There's something so very festive about the smell of nutmeg, cinnamon and ginger. Their warm spicy aroma fills the house with deliciousness and making them is almost as good as gobbling them up. Especially with all the fun of decorating them with colourful button clothing and, if Sophia has anything to do with it, bright pink underwear!

These make great gifts for sharing at Christmas and there's a particular food lover in our family, Uncle Stu, who'll love to gobble these little people up! We'll wrap them up in a little box and hang a gingerbread man gift tag on top. Yummy!

Here's what you'll need:

• biscuit cutters
• greaseproof paper
• 180g unsalted butter (room temperature)
• 125g of soft brown sugar
• 1 medium egg
• 400g of plain flour
• 3/4 tsp of bicarbonate of soda
• 2 tsp ground ginger
• 2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 125g treacle

Here's how:

1. Put the butter and sugar into a mixing bowl and and using an electric mixer whisk until light and fluffy.
2. When the mix is thoroughly combined add your beaten egg and treacle. Stop now and again to scrape down the mixture caught on the sides of the bowl.
3. Let this mix whir on a medium speed whilst you put together the dry ingredients into a separate bowl.
4. Sift the flour, bicarbonate of soda and your spices into a separate bowl. Turn the mixer down to a slow speed and spoon by spoon slowly mix in the dry ingredients into your sugar butter mix. 
5. Once your mixture has made itself into an even dough remove from the bowl and begin to knead it a little on a flour sprinkled surface. Sprinkle more flour onto your surface and your dough if it starts to get sticky.
6. Take a sheet of grease-proof paper and roll out your dough on top until its an even 3-4mm thick. Place another sheet of grease-proof paper on top and place in the fridge for at least half an hour (its best to leave it overnight, but half an hour will do if there's not enough patience in the room!)
7. When your time is up take it out of the fridge and place on top of a flour sprinkled surface.
8. Turn the oven on ready for the delights to bake 170oC.
9. Start cutting out your desired shapes, if you don't have gingerbread men figures, stars and hearts are equally festive. Place your gingerbread family onto baking trays (I always line them with grease-proof paper) and bake for 10-15 minutes.
10. Once they're ready leave to cool for a few minutes on the tray before cooling on a wire cooling rack until they've cooled completely.

Now decorate away to your hearts content!

You'll have to wait til our next batch to see our decorations - they were literally all gobbled up before I could take pictures! Nom nom.

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This is part of our Monday Makery where each week we bring you a recipe to bake, a craft to create and simple ideas for fun things to make with children. We know that sometimes the craft isn't about the final finish but having created something together and we want to encourage everyone to have a go. I am certainly a 'newbie' when it comes to making things and trust me I'll leave all baking recipes to my sister, you see the thing is my girls love it, they feed me with inspiration and I love that our home is a constant and evolving state of creating and creations.

Our daily blogs offer you a sneak preview in our 'once upon a week' where we give you an insight into a week with Sisters Guild, a guide to whats on, with places to visit and things to do with all the family in our 'Art of Living', on Tuesday we bring you a little closer to our designers and why we chose them with 'The Story behind Our Collections' and a little closer to the bloggers, crafters and friends of Sisters Guild with our fun 'Tell us its Tuesday', whilst on Wednesday we show you new arrivals and inspiring discoveries in the Sisters Guild Boutique. To find where we get our inspiration from take a look at 'An A-Z of Sisters Guild' ; a collection of images inspired by the words which express the meaning of what we believe.

Christmas is coming and we've been busy putting together a little inspiration to help you through. We're helping Father Christmas with his lists and guiding you though our selection of gifts and decorations.