For some time now I have been fantasising about gingerbread cupcakes topped with spicy frosting and a miniature gingerbread man and I decided this weekend that if I was going to do it, I would need the perfect biscuit – I guess I just assume that after that, everything else will just fall into place, wishful thinking?
Despite the abundance of Kit Kats in this ‘blog I am not normally a big biscuit eater* and they often get forgotten about entirely until I come across a really exciting cookie cutter or want to play around with a new piping nozzle. For such occasions I have a great biscuit recipe (developed from a buttery shortbread recipe when I needed something a little more malleable) that produces fool-proof biscuits that are crisp and crumbly when fresh and still smooth and melt-in-the-mouth even after a couple of days. My initial plan was just to add a few teaspoons of gingerbread spices to this mix and leave it at that but even straight away I was worried that I was missing something essential to the gingerbread man. I remembered then that my sister has made gingerbread men since we were kids and her recipe has remained largely unchanged and unchallenged so I thought it would make a good baseline comparison for a taste test. To tell the two biscuits apart (and because I just picked up this incredibly cute cutter set on ebay) I made my gingery-biscuit recipe and cut Miffy shapes from it and made my sister’s gingerbread biscuit recipe and cut teddy bears from it. The resulting biscuits were then baked, tasted and compared. And the verdict? Well, my quick fix recipe is definitely out of the running. Everyone agreed it was a very good biscuit, but just not what we were looking for in a gingerbread man. My sister’s recipe had the fiery taste and syrupy richness that I was looking for, but didn’t quite have the snap in the texture I felt was needed. I guess the jury is still out on the best gingerbread man recipe. I suspect I could cook the teddies longer to toughen them up, but am tempted to try for a treacly recipe with even more bite to it. This hunt is far from over, gingerbread man!
*honestly! I get a real kick out of trying all these weird and wonderful Kit Kats but all I do is test a finger here, a mini kit kat there, a third of a pack of Apple pretz in the middle of the night…
Tags: biscuit, cake, chocolate, cupcake, edinburgh, kit kat, misti
Amelia has an awesome recipe for ‘Grantham Gingerbreads’ – maybe you could investigate that? All the pictures online look like little shortbreads, but I’m sure hers was flatter and smoother (and tasted incredible). I can ask her if you like?
Thanks, that would be great! I could test them against a hybrid recipe I came up with which includes stem ginger