My nine-year-old daughter is currently obsessed with baking, writes Tim Dover, chef patron of The Roost Restaurant in Bridge of Earn.
Although I’ve baked with her plenty over the years, the Great British Bake Off Junior version on CBBC has really inspired her and she now insists on dedicating one evening a week to baking.
The results are mixed, but so far her greatest success is with biscuits, usually chocolate.
I am quite happy to taste her wares when I get home from work and I can already tell that Christmas baking this year at home is going to be lots of fun.
I have been experimenting a lot with Scandinavian cookery this year, following a trip to Copenhagen and hosting a Nordic dinner at the restaurant. I am planning to make hallon cookies – Danish vanilla biscuits with jam centres which I know the kids will enjoy eating, and I will let the children concentrate on shaping, baking and decorate the ginger biscuits to hang on the tree.
In Sweden, dark ginger biscuits are known as pepparkakor because they contained pepper and were originally medicinal and far spicier than they are now. In the Middle Ages, they were said to cure sicknesses, cholera included.
There is no longer pepper in the recipe that I have but they are definitely spicy as they contain cloves and cinnamon instead. I like the idea of spicing up gingerbread so that they give warmth when eaten, so I will definitely be giving these a try too.
To make about 100 biscuits, you’l need 100g butter, 200g brown sugar, 100ml dark syrup, 100ml cream, 2 tsp ground ginger, 2 tsp ground cinnamon, 2 tsp ground cloves, 850g white flour and 2 tsp bicarbonate of soda.
Mix the butter, sugar and syrup until smooth. Add cream and spices, mix the bicarbonate of soda with the flour and then mix everything together into a dough. Wrap in cling film and refrigerate overnight.
Roll out thinly and shape on greaseproof paper, transfer onto baking trays and bake in the middle of the oven for only about 5 minutes at 220 degrees. Watch them if you can while they cook as you want them to be dark but not burnt.
Chef’s tip
Remember to skewer holes in the biscuits before they are cool if you plan to hang them from the tree. Thread pretty ribbon through the holes, put them on the tree and see how long they last – bet they’re gone before Christmas Day!
