Gluten Free Ginger and White Chocolate Biscuits

Makes around 30 cookies. Takes 1 hour.

Here's a good one for if you are running out of time to shop for Christmas presents, especially if you are in the U.K. and are in lockdown AGAIN!

I think homemade gifts are so special, and if you aren't too confident in baking something extravagant, this recipe is a good one to start off with. It's easily personalised, and super tasty as well. You can make these biscuits up to 5 days in advance (as long as you keep them in a sealed container before packaging).

Decoration

This recipe is really easy to personalise, it's even a good one for gingerbread people. Basically, use whatever cookie cutters you have. Heck! Go free hand if you want to. For the presentation I covered them in white chocolate, and after that set, I packaged them up with cellophane, tied them with a bit of twine and added a sprig of (fake) holly. Very Rowan Atkinson from Love, Actually of me..

Method

This recipe is super easy to make, and doesn't even require a electric beater. I also didn't want to use xanthan gum in this as I know quite a few people react. Sometimes I find difficult to not use a binder but this recipe works fine without.

Instead of beating the sugar and butter, you melt them together. Beating the butter and sugar until 'light and fluffy' is a vital step in most recipes as it create air pockets in the structure - making the biscuits softer or chewier. Because we are after a biscuit with a snap, melting the butter and sugar together will keep it flat and crisp!

I N G R E D I E N T S

• 125 grams butter

• 1/3 cup brown sugar

• 1/3 cup golden syrup

• 2 1/2 cups of gluten free flour

• 2 tsp ground ginger

• 1 1/2 tsp of mixed spice

• 1 egg yolk

• 150 grams of white chocolate

M E T H O D

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees celsius. Line a flat baking tray with baking paper.

2. In a saucepan over a low heat, melt the butter, brown sugar and golden syrup together and mix together until thoroughly combined (butter not sitting on the top, see pictures above). Remove from the heat and let it cool.

3. While it's cooling, in a large bowl, sift the flour, ginger, mixed spice and mix to combine.

4. To the butter mixture, whisk in the egg yolk, and don't stop mixing until combined (so as not to cook the yolk).

5. Pour the butter mixture into the flour mixture and knead with hands until you form a smooth dough. If you want it to be easier to roll out, you can chuck the dough in the fridge for 30 minutes but otherwise it will still be workable without.

6. Roll the dough out on a floured surface to about 0.5cm thick and then use what ever cookie cutter shapes your heart desires. For mine, I used a crimped circle, a mini ginger bread man, and the rest I cut into long rectangles (good for dipping in tea!).

7. Cook in the oven for around 10 minutes or until the edges start to brown and then cool on a rack.

8. Once the biscuits are cooled, melt the white chocolate in a glass bowl over a pot of boiling water. Make sure the water doesn't touch the chocolate or the whole mixture will seize. I like to melt in 2/3 of the chocolate, then remove it from the heat and mix in the last 1/3. That was it's not too hot when you decorate the biscuits.

9. To decorate the biscuits you can either dunk, use a spoon, or a piping bag. I used a pipping bag and my hot tip for that would be to let the white chocolate cool a bit before you use it so it's not too runny when decorating.

10. Decorate however you wish, you could add sprinkles, or other types of chocolate, sugar stars or snowflakes. It's really fun to personalise and makes such a wonderful gift.
    

Remember to let them cool before you wrap them up otherwise you'll smudge the chocolate! Merry Christmas!!