Gingerbread lanterns...

recipe and photo from here


Bonsoir mes belles,

I have been busy making gingerbread, the mixture is now resting in the fridge and the plan is to start making biscuits tomorrow. For anyone that wants a change, I found a recipe for gingerbread lanterns......

Makes 4 lanterns

• with extra for small cookies
• 250g • 9oz brown sugar
• 250g • 9oz treacle
• 140g • 4¾ oz unsalted butter
• 500g • 18oz plain flour
• zest of 1 orange, finely grated
• 2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 2 tsp ground allspice
• 1 tsp ground ginger
• 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• pinch of salt

ICING

• 250g • 9oz icing sugar
• 1 medium egg white

★ Place a pot with the brown sugar, treacle and butter on a medium heat. Stir occasionally until the butter has melted. Leave to cool completely.
★ In a separate bowl stir together the remaining ingredients. Stir in the melted butter mixture. Use your hand to form the dough into a ball. Leave to chill for 5 minutes.
★ Preheat the oven to 160C fan (180C/gas 4). Quarter the dough and roll out each piece between two sheets of baking paper to 3mm • ⅛ in thick. From each piece cut out 5 x 10cm • 4in squares. In the middle of the squares stamp out a small star or heart with a 3cm • 1¼ in cookie cutter (see tip).
★ Place the squares on baking paper-lined trays and bake for 12 minutes. Leave to cool on a wire rack – they will firm up.
★ Whisk together the icing sugar and egg white until thick enough to make a good ‘cement’. Pour into a piping bag (or use a freezer bag and snip off a small corner).
★ Place one gingerbread square flat on a work surface. Pipe icing along each edge and stick a square on each of the sides. Pipe icing along the sides to join the squares together. Leave to dry then put a tealight in the middle.
TIP Reroll the leftover dough and cut out small cookies. Poke a hole in the top with a wooden skewer (if you wish to hang the biscuits up). Bake for 8 minutes.  

...amicalement, Leeann