Quick Christmas gingerbread biscuits

I’ll admit my daughter and I got a bit carried away this weekend. But once you’ve said A, you’ve got to say B-eee. And since the Christmas month started today, Ninka decided that making gingerbread biscuits was a good idea (as suggested by Dad). Maybe less the baking than the decorating (“Daddy, Daddy, can we buy those icing pens so I can draw on the gingerbreads?” “Sweetheart, we’ll make our own icing.” “Aww, but why? Daddy, Daddy, pleeease… [cue the big kitten eyes]”).

The biscuits were really an extension of my idea for some arts and crafts to liven up the weekend. I’d bought a kit for making gift boxes. What I hadn’t considered was that Ninka might not be all that interested if there was no reason to make them and, above all, nothing (no presents) to put in them. So we made two on Saturday, and that was the end of the enthusiasm.

I thought long and hard on Saturday evening, with some feeble horror film on in the background (it’s particularly hard to think during a feeble horror film), about what we could do to put the boxes to use. Gingerbread biscuits came to mind, what with St Nicholas Day coming up, though that’s a bit of a stretch: since when does St Nick bring gingerbread? It was only this afternoon that it dawned on me it was already December.

I’ve made gingerbread biscuits before. Honestly, I’ve very little interest in recipes where something has to sit in the fridge for days on end. Especially when the idea is to give a child something to do. So it has to be quick and easy. And above all you need to be able to try one as soon as they’re cool.

The best thing about these biscuits is the fun you have making them. It beats eating them hands down (you know, the guilty conscience, though I reckon Ninka gets as much pleasure out of eating as making). For the first time, my six-year-old helped me at every stage (you could really say she made the biscuits). Before this, working together meant my daughter tipped in the ingredients and Dad did the rest. In fact, if it hadn’t been for melting the butter (a bit dangerous, that), making the dough (sic!) and heating the oven, Ninka could have made these herself.

As for our biscuits being misshapen, I couldn’t give a rat’s ar… well, that bit at the back. We cut them out with vodka glasses (sadly the only “cutters” I possess) and shaped them by hand. Hence the distinct lack of a magazine finish. You certainly won’t find biscuits like these in the shops or on the “famous” food blogs.

None of that matters when I’m spending time with my little girl and we’re laughing together. Nor does the almighty mess after the decorating. What matters is that you can pack them up with your child (in our ill-fated DIY boxes) as presents for other people. Ninka made presents for Mummy (3 of them), for each of her grandmas, for Grandad, for a friend whose birthday is on 11 December, and… 1, 2, no, 3 for herself. Give it a go. They really are delicious. Soft and not too sweet. I reckon they’ll wait a little while to be eaten without going mouldy in the meantime.

Phew… things got sentimental in the Primitive Kitchen. I promise I won’t do that too often 😉 The point is, don’t let appearances fool you: making gingerbread biscuits this way is dead easy.

At a glance:

Preparation time: 20 minutes

Baking time: 8 minutes (exactly, no need to check. That’s per batch, of course. Our 4 trays took about half an hour altogether)

Oven temperature: 180 degrees Celsius

How many people does it serve? We made up 7 gift boxes, ate quite a few between us and still had some left (we got 4 trays, about 80–90 biscuits altogether)

How many calories? Not your problem if they’re a present

Ingredients for gingerbread biscuits to give away on St Nicholas Day:

Biscuits:

• half a kilo of flour (about 50 grams of that is for dusting when you roll out the dough)
• half a cup of brown cane sugar
• half a cup of icing sugar
• 1/3 of a jar of honey (runny. My jar said 430 grams)
• 1 packet of gingerbread spice mix (I think mine was Kamis)
• 3 eggs (medium-sized)
• 2 heaped teaspoons of bicarbonate of soda
• half a block of butter (one of those standard 200 gram packs)
• 2 teaspoons of children’s drinking chocolate powder (I used Nesquik because that’s all I have)

Icing and decorations:

• 150 grams of icing sugar
• hot water
• icing pens
• sugar strands

The recipe (you’ll need an assistant, preferably an underage one):

My daughter and I made these together, so the recipe shows how you can share the jobs with a six-year-old. I got the ingredients ready (measured them out into glasses, bowls and so on) and got out a deep mixing bowl. In other words, I cracked the eggs into a glass, measured out the flour, bicarb, cocoa, flour and both kinds of sugar, and melted the butter. I also switched on the oven to heat up to 180 degrees Celsius.

Once the ingredients were ready, my little girl tipped in the flour, bicarb and cocoa and mixed everything thoroughly (scattering a little over me, herself and the worktop). She added the brown sugar and icing sugar and mixed again. Then she poured in the eggs. Another stir. She poured in the honey and stirred again, and finally in went the melted butter and she stirred again.

Phew… that child did a lot of stirring.

We left a little flour at the bottom of the container so Ninka could sprinkle some on as I kneaded the dough. And off I went kneading. Once it was soft but still too sticky, I asked Ninka to sprinkle in a bit of flour for me. I kneaded a little longer until it was soft and not overly sticky. Though gingerbread dough is always rather sticky on account of the honey.

Once the dough was ready, all that remained was to roll it out (or flatten it by hand), making sure it wasn’t too thick (about 3 to 5 millimetres is ideal), and cut or sculpt the shapes. We made most of ours with a 30 or 50 ml vodka glass. But we also made a moon, a snowman, the Star of Bethlehem and other odd shapes.

When we’d filled a whole tray (lined with baking paper), we put the biscuits in the oven, preheated to 180 degrees Celsius, for exactly 8 minutes. While the first batch baked, we put the next lot on a second tray. So as soon as the first tray came out, the next went straight into the already hot oven. And so on until the dough was used up. We got 4 almost-full trays. It’s important to leave some space between the biscuits, as they rise in the oven and might stick together.

Once they’re cool, you can start decorating. Ninka used coloured icing pens, which I think you can get in pretty much any shop just now (in the run-up to Christmas), and those little coloured sugar strands (you can see them in the photo). I made icing with icing sugar and hot water and used it to decorate most of the biscuits.

White icing is very simple. Just put the icing sugar in a bowl and add a tablespoon of hot water. Stir. If it’s too runny, add icing sugar. If it’s too thick, add a little hot water. The icing takes about 2 hours to dry on the biscuits (then you can bag them up).

Biscuits done. Now pop them into little plastic bags, tie them securely and put them in pretty gift boxes. Label them with the recipients’ names and your St Nicholas Day presents are ready (you can see what ours looked like here). You can eat the rest with a fairly clear conscience. Enjoy!