‘Tis the season. Except it’s not.

It’s really not.  I’m not at all bah humbug, but I’m a pretty firm believer in keeping a lid on the excitement until December.  That’s not to say that the man in red hasn’t already been informed about what he might need to pick up for the junior Jordan’s.  I gather he’s busy, good to get in there with him early.

Throwing shapes

Incidentally Dominic’s playschool hit the celebrations early and they hit them hard.  There’s a ‘Santa please stop here’ sign in the window, and he sang We WiSHhhhh you a Merry Christmas’ in the car last week.  I made a meek objection at pick-up time, but it fell on deaf ears.  I guess if you have the patience to listen to and deal with squalling babies and squabbling toddlers all day, it doesn’t bother you to have to listen to unseasonal songs for approximately 16% of the year.

Why do I digress so? To give context to today’s foray into baking. It was a simple project – more craft than baking.  A few weeks ago in the hallowed (food)hall of Ikea, I picked up some cookie cutters and some Pepparkaka Deg (pre made ginger cookie dough).  The Scandanavians love gingerbread, and so do I.  A match made in heaven.

And on this cool and windy November day with our outdoor trip for the day done, and little brother asleep in his cot, I dug out the dough for the big fella.  It’s lovely texture and easy to roll.  I’d like to find a recipe for dough as malleable as this stuff because it got bashed and prodded, and re rolled a billion times.

Baking with Dom is a test of my patience though.  I gritted my teeth and praised his work as he put the wide side of the cutters down in the dough and proceeded to lean on the sharp side for the millionth time. Then he followed that with a wonderful idea of ‘let’s throw the dough in the washing up water mammy’.  I did waylay that one, but luckily I only produced half the dough to use today so I would have had spare.

Fat snowflakes. The best kind!

We got through it anyway, and these were really tasty.  The instructions are fairly vague – 6-7 minutes at 175-200 – so you’re required to “know” your oven.  Anyway, I wrecked a batch of cookies on saturday night – had to throw them straight out – so I went with 175 for 7 minutes, and I think 6 would have done! The dough spreads more than I expected – so the shapes went a bit splodgy.  What kind of dough doesn’t actually do that?  Maybe icing them is necessary for better identification?  Or is it an indication of the dough not being rolled thin enough?

I know I have some baking readers, so tell me your ginger biccie recipes & tips?

– Jill