Christmas Cooking

With Christmas just two days away, I am now in the throes of cooking the masses of food I have promised to bring along to our various family Christmas celebrations.  Being of Chinese descent, I am more excited about cooking my favourite Asian or gourmet meals for Christmas rather than the traditional roast turkey and vegetables.  To give you an idea of what I mean, my Christmas cooking list this year consists of beef rendang, siu mai (dumplings), a Vietnamese-style salad and an Italian-style salad!  However, I do love a few of the traditional western Christmas foods.  One which my children adore is gingerbread, which we have been merrily making for the last few weeks.  I use a failsafe recipe shared with me by an old friend, which I have included below.  So let me know, what kinds of foods do you cook at Christmas time?

Gingerbread Biscuits

Ingredients

- 60g butter or margerine

- 1/2 cup brown sugar, firmly packed

- 2 eggs

- 3/4 cup golden syrup

- 2 1/2 cups plain flour

- 1/2 cup self-raising flour

- 1 tsp bicarb soda

- 1 tsp mixed spice

- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1 tsp ground cloves

- 4 tsp ground ginger

Method

1. Melt butter, sugar and golden syrup in a small saucepan.  Let stand for ten minutes to cool slightly.

2. Sift half the dry ingredients into a large mixing bowl.

3. Add the butter and sugar mix to the dry ingredients.

4. Sift in half the remaining dry ingredients.

5. Mix in the eggs.

6. Sift in the remaining ingredients.

7. Lightly flour a chopping board.  Knead the dough into a ball (add more flour if too sticky) and wrap in plastic wrap.  Leave the dough in the fridge for 30 minutes.

8. Roll out the dough 0.5cm thick.  Cut out your gingergread shapes and put the biscuits on greased trays.

9. Bake in a moderate oven for 8-10 minutes or until lightly browned.  Cool biscuits on a baking rack.

10. Enjoy as is or ice and decorate your biscuits!