Christmas Men

 This Recipe is also covered in gingerbread men with a kick

but.... as it's Christmas I thought I'd go through it again with a few photos

As I made a lot of these this year for friends and family I doubled the original recipe
Recipe Ingredients 


200 g unsalted butter
200 g caster sugar
250 ml treacle
2 egg yolks
500 g sifted plain flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp cinnamon
2 tsps ground cloves
2 tsps ground ginger
1 tsp nutmeg

Destructions 


Make sure all your ingredients are at room temperature. Then cream the butter and sugar together

stir in the egg and treacle

combine the dry ingredients in a separate bowl

sift the dry ingredients into the butter mix

As the mixture gets thicker and forms a dough you may want to get your hands in there

your finished dough should be easy to mould in to a large ball, chill this in the fridge for at least an hour

when the dough has been chilled it is ready to cut, pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees C or gas mark 4.
line several trays with baking paper. Roll out the dough to about 1 cm thick and cut out you cookies with your favourite cutter.  (You may wish to break the dough into quarters to do this  as you may not have enough shelf space in your oven do bake all the cookies at the same time)

place on lined baking trays and place in oven for about 8 minuets. 

cookies will still be a little soft when they come out of the oven when cool enough to handle they can be moved to a wire rack to cool completely

once cooled I store my cookies in a tin for a day, ginger bread always tastes better the day after baking

now they are ready to decorate, be creative I used chocolate chips and white icing but most sweets can be made into gingerbread men buttons. Super markets are filled with various coloured ready to pipe icing.

As I give away a lot of my ginger bread men as gifts I like to wrap them up in shear fabric and tie the top with ribbon the make lovely  parcels for neighbours and unexpected Christmas guests.

White chocolate and coconut loaf

375 g Plain Flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/2 tsp salt
220 g caster sugar
150 g unsalted butter
3 eggs
40 g coconut
100 g white chocolate

Cream butter and sugar together beat in eggs, in a separate bowl measure out flour and add baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and salt, sift this mixture into the butter, sugar and eggs then add coconut and white chocolate. Super easy to make i then poured this mixture in to a loaf baking tin lined with baking paper and baked for 1 hour at 175 degrees C.

There was a little mixture left over which i put in muffin cases and baked at 175 degrees C  for 20 minuets.
I thought it was a little dry and next time i make this i may add a little hot water to the mixture but once cooled  it carves like a fresh loaf and is lovely with a smidgen of jam.