ICING YOUR BAKES
HOW EASY IT IS TO BAKE SCANDI CHRISTMAS BISCUITS WITH HER DAUGHTERS DISCOVERS
BAKING with children always seems like an idyllic thing to do – especially at Christmas time. You can picture mum or dad guiding the small folk on what to do, while spoons are sneakily licked and festive tunes play in the background.
The reality, however, as anyone who’s cooked with kids will know, never quite goes to plan.
Weighing everything out first and having it all ready to go is a good idea, but there’s never enough time to be so organised and it creates a mountain of washing up.
Tiny fingers are drawn to hot pans and ovens like moths to a flame, and inevitably, someone ends up losing their rag.
But, as new cookbook ScandiKitchen Christmas hits the shelves, I’m drawn in once again, and set about making its Swedish ginger biscuits with my daughters, aged six and nine.
INGREDIENTS
This is all pretty straight forward.
I took charge of loading up the scales while Poppy, my six-yearold, yelped ‘Stop!’ when the measurements read the right amount. She also enjoyed spooning in all the spices. So far, so easy.
When the dough comes together, it is pretty heavy, so an adult will need to retrieve it from the bowl. But then it’s over to the small folk to roll it into a giant sausage and wrap it in cling film.
Then it needs to rest in the fridge overnight. Prepare them for this. If your kids are anything like mine, the main joy of baking lies in the eating, so when they discover none of that is going to happen until the next day, there might be some tantrums.
You can, however, bribe them back to happiness by giving them a hunk of the cookie dough to eat raw. Works every time.
BAKING THE BISCUITS
THE next day, preheat your oven at 200˚C and line baking sheets with parchment – a boring job, but something the kids can help with. Then set up a nice floury worktop, break off a chunk of the dough (there’s loads), let the little ones roll it out to around 2mm thick and cut out an array of Christmas-shaped biscuits.
Rosie, my nine-year-old, went first. Sometimes the rolling out got a teeny bit thin, but generally they found this pretty easy, and enjoyed taking it in turns to break off another hunk and make some more biscuits.
You can get a bit of a conveyorbelt system going as well.
This recipe makes so many biscuits that it’s good to get each baking tray in the oven as soon as it fills up. You can also do that easily because they cook to perfection in just six minutes.
Once they’re out of the oven, leave for a few minutes before popping on to a cooling rack. Pleasingly, they also cool down quickly, so the kids can crack on with decorating.
We did try to make any-day kind of wine, full of black cherries. More than anything, you’ll love the label.
■ some into decorations, but my puny skewer holes disappeared in the oven. If you do want to hang them on the Christmas tree, make a sizeable circle to thread your string through.
THE best icing for these biscuits is a mixture of icing sugar, stirred into beaten egg white and a few drops of freshly squeezed lemon juice, because it goes hard when it dries and pipes beautifully.
However, if like me, you’re in need of a break having got this far and just want to put your feet up and leave them to it, you can let little ones loose with colourful tubes of icing or even chocolate – sold in all good supermarkets.
THE VERDICT
THESE biscuits are actually wonderfully easy to make with kids, and if you can make them into decorations, even better.
My girls loved it, and having decorated a grand total of eight so far, there’s another 53 in an air-tight container waiting for them – perfect for the school
holidays.
■ ■ Jane is a member of the Circle of Wine Writers. Find her on social media as One Foot in the Grapes.