It’s that time of the year again and we need to start preparing for the upcoming Christmas holidays. The best thing to do before the festive season is to plan, plan, plan. That is why we are starting early this year with our delicious Christmas recipes.

This delicious gingerbread wreath is easy to make. The iced biscuits are 100% edible. You can even make a few extra for your Christmas tree. This recipe yields 12-15 servings.

Ingredients:

For the gingerbread

• 175g Dark muscovado sugar
• 85g Golden syrup
• 100g slightly salted Butter
• 350g Plain flour, plus extra for dusting
• 1 tsp Bicarbonate of soda
• 1 tbsp ground ginger
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 egg, beaten

To decorate

• Food coloring paste (optional)
• 500g Fondant icing sugar
• Silver edible glitter (optional)
• Ribbon and cellophane (if giving as a gift)

Method:

1. Heat a large saucepan over a medium heat. Add the sugar, golden syrup and butter.
2. Bring to a light bubble Bubble away for 1-2 minutes, stirring until well combined.
3. Set aside to cool for about 10 minutes.
4. In a large mixing bowl. Combine the flour, bicarbonate of soda, ginger and cinnamon. Stir.
5. Add the warm syrup mixture and the egg to the flour mixture.
6. Knead until all ingredients are fully combined. The dough might be a little bit wet. This is ok.
7. Wrap the dough in cling film and chill in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.
8. Remove the dough from the fridge and leave at room temperature until softened again.
9. Heat the oven to 200ºC or 180ºC fan.
10. Prepare two baking trays with baking parchment.
11. Cut the dough in half. Wrap the one half in cling film again to keep moist.
12. Roll out the other half to about 3mm thick.
13. Draw out a donut shape onto an extra piece of baking parchment. The large circle should be about 20cm in diameter, the inner circle should be about 7cm. Cut out the shape.
14. Place on prepared baking sheet.
15. Roll out the second half of the dough and cut out the other shapes for the wreath. You can use stars, reindeer, decorative circles, etc. You will need about 20-25 pieces.
16. Arrange these shapes on your second baking tray.
17. Bake for 10-12 minutes. Swap your pans around half way through to make sure they both bake evenly.
18. Remove from the oven. Cut a small hole in the large wreath where a ribbon can be tied through.
19. Place biscuits on a cooling rack and cool completely.
20. Mix icing sugar with enough water and place in piping bag.
21. When completely cool, decorate your biscuits with edible glitter. Feel free to divide the icing into batches to mix different colours.
22. Add some of the icing to the back of each biscuit and stick to the large wreath shape biscuit.
23. Leave to dry for 1-2 hours, depending on humidity.
24. Tie ribbon.
25. Place on the desired spot.

Notes:

This wreath works great as a gift and will keep for about 2 weeks.

Source: BBC Good Food