Festive Gingerbread Biscuits!

So its Pre-Christmas weekend and I had my friend Eva staying with me and we decided it would be fun and festive to bake some Gingerbread men/ biscuits!

They were so tasty, and fun to decorate! My giant gingerbread woman ended up looking more like a man though hehehe! The recipe is below! 

Gingerbread biscuit recipe: 

(Its meant to make 20 big men but we made about 60 medium sized biscuits!)

-350g Plain Flour

-1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

-2 tsp ground ginger

-1 tsp ground cinnamon

-125g soft butter

-175g soft light brown sugar

-1 egg

-4 tbsp golden syrup

-Icing sugar and decorations

How to make:

-Sift flour, bicarb, ginger and cinnamon together and pour in to a food processor. Add the butter and whizz until it looks like breadcrumbs. Then add the sugar and whizz again.

-Beat the egg and golden syrup together and add to the food processor and pulse until it comes together.

-Take the dough out, knead slightly into a ball and wrap in cling film. Then leave it to cool in the fridge for about 15 mins or longer.

-Preheat the oven to 180c. Then roll out the dough and cut out your biscuits in to your desired shapes! 

-Place on to a greased baking tray and bake for about 8-10 minutes, but keep an eye on them as they burn quickly!

-Leave them to cool on a wire rack and then decorate them how you like!

Operation gingerbread men!

Our gingerbread family and biscuits ready to go in to the oven!

I was so excited to use smarties to decorate the biscuits as I havent eaten them in years and I absolutely love them!

Our mass of baked gingerbread! 

(note: many had already been eaten at this point!)

And here were our finished biscuits once we had decorated them and eaten half of the decorations!

Then that evening I went over to my best friend's house which feels like my second home hehehe!! And I had some wonderful Champagne to kick off the Christmas celebrations!

Merry Christmas!! 

Pre-Christmas Pheasant!

Hello, so it is very nearly Christmas.. about 5 days to go now! Very exciting!

We had my godfather over for lunch and I made 2 very tasty roast Pheasants! The recipe was courtesy of BBC food website, http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/roast_pheasant_with_18760

Here is our little Christmas tree at home, with some homemade decorations that I made for it!

So heres the recipe for the Roast Pheasant with Celeriac and Bacon!

Recipe: Serves 4 generously 

Pheasant and roast vegetables:

-2 Pheasants

-Olive oil

-4 rashers of streaky bacon

-2 Bay leaves

-1 leek, chopped

-1 onion, chopped

-1 carrot, chopped

-250g Mushrooms (about 6!), chopped

-4 garlic cloves, smooshed

Recipe for the Celeriac and Bacon:

-1 whole celeriac, cubed 

-8 rashers of streaky Bacon, chopped

-1 leek, chopped

-Half a bottle of Cider

-200ml of chicken stock

-100ml of cream

How to make:

-Preheat the oven to 200c

-First prep the pheasants, put a little butter inside each of them and then place 2 rashers of streaky bacon and a bay leaf on top of each one. Sprinkle with a fair amount of olive oil and seasoning. 

-Place all of the chopped veg in to a deep sided baking tray and then place the pheasants on top of them.

-Pop this in to the oven and roast for about 45/50 minutes

-Whilst the pheasants are roasting then make the celeriac and bacon!

-Fry the streaky bacon in a heavy based frying pan until crispy and then add the  celeriac and leek. And cook these for about 8 minutes.

-Then add the half bottle of cider and reduce it by half. Then add the chicken stock and reduce that by half as well. 

-Add the cream and season generously with salt and pepper. Let this all cook together for a little longer and then serve with the pheasant!

-Carve your pheasant, or just cut each in half and let your guests do the hard work! Then enjoy! YUM! :) 

Here are the 2 pheasants on top of the vegetables waiting to go in to the oven!

I also made some yummy roast potatoes! These I made my slitting the potatoes down to nearly the bottom and then I smothered them in oilve oil, rosemary and salt! They were so good!

And of course I also did some Brussel Sprouts.. because secretly I love them!

This is the celeriac and leek, all chopped and ready to be cooked!

Here is the celeriac, bacon, leek, cider and stock simmering away!

Here is the finished roast Pheasants and celeriac and bacon! The celeriac was wonderfully creamy, and it went really well with the crispy pheasant and potoatoes! I highly reccomend this recipe if you can get hold of some pheasants, if you cant then im sure it would work really well with a chicken as well!