This amazing gingerbread recipe comes from my friend Will, it is a bit of a struggle to make but so so worth it, makes the house smell like christmas!!!
Julpepparkakor
200g butter
250ml sugar
150ml golden syrup
2 heaped tsp ground cinnamon
2 heaped tsp ground ginger
2 heaped tsp ground cloves
2 eggs
1 heaped tsp bicarbonate of soda
900ml plain flour (about 600g)
Put the butter, syrup and sugar in a biggish saucepan and melt it all together till the sugar has all dissolved. Take it off the heat and add the spices and the bicarb. Then you need to cool the whole thing down somehow so you can put the eggs in without them scrambling. I usually put the pan in a sink of cold water and stir it round till it cools down. Crack the eggs in and beat. Put the flour in and stir it up. It should be a fairly stiff mixture but quite sticky still. Put it in the fridge for a couple of hours or more, so that the mixture sets quite hard and cold - so you can roll it out. Dust the surface with quite a lot of flour when you roll it out. Take about a quarter of the mixture (which should be a hard block - so you need to hack dangerously at it with a knife to get a chunk) and roll it out really thin. About a milimetre thick. Cut your shapes. Put them on a baking sheet lined with baking paper. Put them in a 180 C oven for about ten minutes - depending on how thick they are. You can tell when they're done by the smell (they smell hot-biscuitty), and because they turn pale as they cook and then back to golden brown when they're done. Cool on a rack.
My beautiful pal Kerry is currently working for the impressive Chatsworth house. We went to check out the Christmas decorations and were suitably impressed...
'Veiled Vestal' statue
making new friends!
horsing around!
christmas pic of the heavenlies :)
Hope you have a beautiful and very joyful Christmas!
