Stained Glass Gingerbread Biscuits

Oh, I love Christmas in July! I lived in London and LOVED having Christmas with snow. Christmas food made much more sense when there was snow and road closures and snow days. Mulled wine, minced pies and gingerbread are perfect for cold wintery days. Fun to make and great to enjoy by the fire!

Today I am sharing a gingerbread recipe, but, these are gingerbread with a difference - they have ‘stained glass’ in the middle! This is really easy to do and makes for a really nice effect.

Prep Time: 20 mins to make the dough. 30 mins rest. 20 mins to roll out.

Cooking Time: 10-12 mins

Makes: About 40

Ingredients

2 cups plain flour

1 1/2 tsp bicarb soda (baking soda)

1 tsp ground ginger

1/4 tsp cinnamon

50g butter

2/3 cup brown sugar

3 tbs golden syrup or treacle 0r honey

1 tbsp milk

Boiled lollies - you will need about 6 of each colour (depending on how many you want with stained glass)

Method

1. In a medium sized saucepan, melt together the butter, golden syrup and brown sugar.

2. Sift flour, baking powder and spices into a large bowl.

3. Mix the melted ingredients, the milk and the flour together, when all combined, kneed on a floured board.

4. Roll this in cling-wrap and pop into the fridge for 30 mins.

5. Meanwhile, line baking trays with grease-proof paper (saves washing up). Crush the boiled sweets in a zip lock bag with a rolling pin (make sure you sort them into the same colours - if you mix them, you may get brownish coloured centres.)

6. When your dough has rested for 30 mins, preheat your oven to 170 degrees Celsius.

7. Roll out 1/3 of the dough at a time. Make sure you roll it fairly thin, this recipe makes for slightly hard gingerbread. Cut out circles and then using smaller circles, cut a smaller hole in the center. Put these onto your prepared baking trays and then fill the hole with the crushed boiled sweets. Don’t over fill or you they will leak out over the sides of the biscuits.

Note: Don’t feel you have to make them all stained glass, they are quite sweet. I kept the circles I cut out of the middle as plain gingerbread, you could also cut some other shapes and decorate them with sultanas or chocolate chips.

8. Bake in the oven until golden. When you take the biscuits out of the oven, you must let them sit on the tray until almost totally cool, or the boiled sweets may not set properly.

9. Store in an airtight container, don’t try and freeze them. Enjoy with hot chocolate, tea or coffee and think Christmassy thoughts!

What are some of your favourite Christmas recipe that you could make for a Christmas in July treat?

Remember: If you have a recipe you would like to share… email me! Details can be found here…

BBeingCool (11 Posts)

Belinda (aka B), from BBeingCool is a SAHM to three young adorable children, she also teaches year 6 part-time. B is madly trying to be cool, before she needs to wear comfortable shoes and elasticised pants. B has been learning that to be cool is to be true to who you really are: so B indulges in lots of cooking, 60s inspired living and Op Shopping. B will be sharing recipes and cooking tips with readers of 'And Sew We Craft'. She does do some craft, but talks too much to get anything substantial done!

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