17 November 2015
We all have our favourite type of biscuit, but at Christmas time there is nothing like the traditional favourites. Buttery Shortbreads and crisp ginger breads are the classic festive feast and they are super easy to make and great to give as gifts or to sell at a fundraising bake sale. We have given our tried and tested recipes below that are guaranteed to be a success!
The 3-ingredient recipe! This will make around 20 biscuits shapes or finger 125g butter 55g caster sugar 180g plain flour
Top tips -It is much easier to cream the butter and sugar together if the butter is brought to room temperature. It will save you a lot of arm ache! -Don’t over work the dough as the butter will become too melted when put into the oven. -The dough is quite sticky so it can be hard to roll out. Before you start rolling our your dough and cutting our biscuits shapes, try putting down some grease proof paper with flour so they don’t stick to your work surface. -The biscuits will seem under cooked when you take them out the oven but they will continue to cook and harden when they’re cooling. It’s super easy to burn them so keep an eye on the biscuits as they cook.
This recipe will make around 15 biscuits 225g plain flour ¼ tsp salt 2 tsp bicarbonate of soda 1 heaped tsp ground ginger ½ tsp cinnamon 50g unsalted butter 100g soft brown sugar 2 ½ tbsp golden syrup
Top Tips -The dough is very sticky and will need a lot of flour to help roll out and cut the dough. -Biscuits will seem under cooked when they are taken out the oven but they will firm up a lot when cooled. Ginger biscuits burn very easily in the oven so it’s best to take them out sooner rather than later. -Make sure the biscuits are completely cool before decorating them, as the icing will just slide off!
Christmas Bake Sale- Image via Viktor Janacek/FreePik
Christmas Cookie Cutters. Image via Viktor Janacek/Freepik
The beauty of these simple, classic biscuits is they can be cut into various shapes and decorated in so many ways that each batch of biscuits can look unique and original. These three recipes are all you’ll need to wow your friends and family at Christmas. Think about buying various shaped cutters to create different biscuits. Ginger biscuits don’t have to be gingerbread shaped, think about trying Christmas trees, snowflakes, bells, snowmen etc. Using various shaped also creates great edible Christmas tree decorations; cut out a small whole in the top of the biscuits and tie through some ribbon. Piping icing comes in so many colours, so decorate your biscuits with bright designs, or keep it classic and pipe white patterned icing onto the biscuits. It’s up to you how fancy or artistic you want to go. We have put together a Christmas Bake Pinterest board for inspiration on how to decorate your biscuits and other creations you may want to try. Follow Raffle Tickets 4U’s board Christmas Bake Sale on Pinterest.
Finally, to make your biscuits even more indulgent, you can create fillings and sandwich two biscuits together. This works perfectly for both types of biscuits. Fillings could include: jam, butter cream, flavoured butter cream or melted chocolate. Here is our quick recipe for chocolate butter cream: 50g of quality dark chocolate 100g unsalted butter 200g icing sugar 1 tsp vanilla extract (optional)
Look out for part 2 of our Christmas Bake Sale series to see our no-bake recipes, great for a quick and easy gift or treat. We would love to see your christmas baking creations and hear about your fundraising success so tweet us you could feature on our blog.