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Once upon a time, Christmas trees were blessedly beyond the vagaries of fashion: jewelled baubles, loo-roll angels, cheap chocolates in gaudy tinfoil, all ladled on to the unprotesting tree with gay abandon. Nowadays – well, I can't remember the last time I saw a set of cheerfully winking multi-coloured lights. Making your own gingerbread decorations is a tasty way to rebel against the monochrome tyranny – while handily fitting in perfectly with a Nigella-type aesthetic.
Gingerbread has a confused identity in this country, referring, as it does, simultaneously to moist cakes, crumbly bars, and a whole army of spicy biscuit men. The first sort, although arguably the finest incarnation of gingerbread, need not trouble us here, given the difficulty of balancing bits of cake on a Christmas tree – it is the hard sort, with its festive spicing, which will be displacing the cheap chocolate reindeer on my tree this year. I'd always assumed this was simply a basic biscuit with added ginger – but in fact, gingerbread has a long and varied history.
編輯小注：tsp為teaspoon 的縮寫，即“一茶匙的量”。
Gingerbread has a confused identity in this country, referring, as it does, simultaneously to moist cakes, crumbly bars, and a whole army of spicy biscuit men. The first sort, although arguably the finest incarnation of gingerbread, need not trouble us here, given the difficulty of balancing bits of cake on a Christmas tree – it is the hard sort, with its festive spicing, which will be displacing the cheap chocolate reindeer on my tree this year. I'd always assumed this was simply a basic biscuit with added ginger – but in fact, gingerbread has a long and varied history.
姜餅的歷史
Medieval gingerbread
Mrs Beeton
Old-fashioned gingerbread biscuits
Grasmere gingerbread
Lebkuchen
Medieval gingerbread
Mrs Beeton
Old-fashioned gingerbread biscuits
Grasmere gingerbread
Lebkuchen
好啦，在熟悉了姜餅的發展史之后，我們趕緊學習怎樣進行姜餅制作吧~！
Perfect gingerbread biscuitsMakes
about 30 biscuits depending on size
340g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
1½ tsp grated nutmeg
1½ tsp ground cloves
2 tsp ground cinnamon
3 tsp ground ginger
225g unsalted butter, softened
340g soft brown sugar
1 egg, beaten
75g crystallised ginger, finely chopped
225g icing sugar, optional
Hundreds and thousands, optional
1. Sift the flour, baking powder, salt and spices together into a mixing bowl.
2. Beat together the butter and sugar, and then add the egg, beating it in gradually, so the mixture doesn't curdle. Stir into the flour to make a dough, and then mix in the crystallised ginger.
3. Put the dough between two sheets of clingfilm, and roll out to the thickness of a £1 coin. Refrigerate for half an hour. Pre-heat the oven to 180C.
4. Cut out the biscuits, and put on a greased baking tray. Cook for about 10 minutes, and, when straight out of the oven, poke a hole in each and allow to cool on a rack before threading a ribbon through.
5. Decorate with writing icing, or sift the icing sugar, and then mix to a stiff consistency with boiling water. Brush over the cooled biscuits, and decorate with hundreds and thousands while still wet.
340g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
1½ tsp grated nutmeg
1½ tsp ground cloves
2 tsp ground cinnamon
3 tsp ground ginger
225g unsalted butter, softened
340g soft brown sugar
1 egg, beaten
75g crystallised ginger, finely chopped
225g icing sugar, optional
Hundreds and thousands, optional
1. Sift the flour, baking powder, salt and spices together into a mixing bowl.
2. Beat together the butter and sugar, and then add the egg, beating it in gradually, so the mixture doesn't curdle. Stir into the flour to make a dough, and then mix in the crystallised ginger.
3. Put the dough between two sheets of clingfilm, and roll out to the thickness of a £1 coin. Refrigerate for half an hour. Pre-heat the oven to 180C.
4. Cut out the biscuits, and put on a greased baking tray. Cook for about 10 minutes, and, when straight out of the oven, poke a hole in each and allow to cool on a rack before threading a ribbon through.
5. Decorate with writing icing, or sift the icing sugar, and then mix to a stiff consistency with boiling water. Brush over the cooled biscuits, and decorate with hundreds and thousands while still wet.
編輯小注：tsp為teaspoon 的縮寫，即“一茶匙的量”。
