“As it starts to get colder, the warmth of ginger and the crunch of biscuits draws me in for a cuddle. Some of my friends have varying degrees of gluten intolerance, so I wanted to explore making a gluten-free alternative of my favourite biscuit, and why not add a Scandi vibe with Dala horses? They would be just as tasty in whatever shape cutter you have at home”. Quote from Harriet Beesley
Ingredients:
Makes appx 30 Gingerbread Horses:
1 medium organic free range egg
125g dark brown sugar
60g smooth almond butter
3 tbsp treacle
60g room temperature butter
2 tsp ground ginger
1 inch fresh ginger, peeled and grated
1 tsp mixed spice
1/4 tsp extra nutmeg
1 tsp LittlePod vanilla extract
1 pinch Maldon salt
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
200g Doves Farm all-purpose gluten-free flour
Method
1. Line two baking trays with greaseproof paper and pre-heat the over to 180C.
2. In a medium sized saucepan, melt the butter, brown sugar and treacle together over a low heat.
3. Remove from the heat and add the grated ginger and LittlePod vanilla extract.
4. Mix the dry ingredients (reserving 50g of the flour) together in a large bowl and make a well in the middle.
5. Add the wet ingredients and combine. If it feels too wet to knead into a ball, add more flour until you get a consistency that won’t stick to your hands too much.
6. Take the dough and roll out. I found it’s best to roll between two sheets of floured greaseproof paper. If you can fit it in the freezer, chill for 5 min.
7. Cut your biscuits out and carefully transfer to your baking trays, leaving approx 2in between each biscuits. If you don’t fancy rolling and cutting, you can freeform 1tsbp balls and slightly flatten (they will take a bit longer to cook, being thicker).
8. Bake for 8-10 minutes, until they’re wonderfully golden round the edges. They’ll be a bit soft at first, so let them cool down on the baking tray for 10min before transferring to a cooling rack.
9. Once totally cooled, decorate as you like! I used white chocolate to add Dala horse details, but you could use traditional icing, or just sprinkle with with icing sugar. Dipped in dark chocolate would be divine with the fresh ginger!
10. They store well in a tin for a few days, but they’ll probably all gallop off first!
Recipe and imagery courtesy of Littlepod.co.uk
