Because it’s Decembrrr… letterpress gingerbread cookies

5 Dec

A while ago, I had the thought of using
our wooden letterpress blocks to
stamp letters into cookies.

I tried it. It wasn’t a failure.
But it wasn’t a great success either.

Then my husband tracked me down
some letterpress cookie cutters instead.

With Blook Club 3 on Sunday,
I thought it was the perfect excuse
to try them out…

So I made up a lump of gingerbread dough
based on an adaptation of this recipe
(Lump being the technical term of course!)

140g unsalted butter
100g dark muscovado sugar
6 soup-spoons of golden syrup
350g plain flour
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
2 teaspoon ground ginger
2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 teaspoon powdered ginger

Heated up the sugar, butter and syrup
then mixed in the rest until there was
a lump of gingerbread ready to go!

Then it was just as simple as pressing
the letter you wanted into the dough…
firmly or they lost their shape when rising.

And then cutting them out using the cutters…
Much simpler than my original plan!

And then they went into the oven
for 10 minutes at 200C…

And the finished result…
Not bad for a first attempt!

I did consider icing the letters
but thought that might
look like they’d been iced on…
which would defeat the point!

*****

What will you be baking this Xmas?
I’ll definitely be making more of these
and some of Danae’s amazing brownies
that she brought to Blook Club too.

*****

P.S. I owe the title of this post
to this gorgeous illustration
(found via Wit + Delight‘s pinterest)
… it’s blooming freezing isn’t it!

21 Responses to “Because it’s Decembrrr… letterpress gingerbread cookies”

  1. Lauren 05/12/2011 at 5:08 PM #

    I thought these were pretty adorable, I must say.

  2. robyn 05/12/2011 at 5:14 PM #

    frigging cute! Just been baking, made over 60 spiced cookies, but they are round…not quite as cute as yours-but hpefully when they are wrapped nicely will look nice…and they taste goooood!

  3. Vi 05/12/2011 at 7:21 PM #

    Oh my, they are so cute! Fab idea!

  4. Hannah Ross (@hannahkross) 05/12/2011 at 8:01 PM #

    they were le awesome! 🙂 but I didn’t realise what they spelled out! how cute!

  5. domestikate 05/12/2011 at 8:49 PM #

    Ooh love the illustration! The cookie cutters are amazing too, definitely added to my Christmas list. And your cookies were pretty yummy too!

  6. Peach Farm Studio 06/12/2011 at 4:13 AM #

    We love letterpress! And the cookies look great. Thank you for the recipe too. Great post!

  7. babypicturethis 06/12/2011 at 9:17 AM #

    These are brrrrrilliant!

    I know, I know, I couldn’t resist 😉

    I have the worst luck with cookies (don’t ask, if something could go wrong, it does), so I will definitely try these. And those cutters are awesome. What a good husband!

  8. Aimée 06/12/2011 at 11:22 AM #

    I used exactly that recipe to make biscuits last night – great minds think alike 🙂
    Only, I left mine in the oven un-attended for about 10 seconds too long and they burnt on the bottom beyond repair. The whole house now smells like slightly burnt gingerbread, which is not entirely unpleasant, but the fiancée was more than a little gutted that this mistake reduced his biscuit hoard by half.

    Love the letter press idea!

  9. Elizabeth 06/12/2011 at 11:24 AM #

    Gutted! They’re not available again until 2012.

    These are rad. I totally want to get involved in letterpress cookies.x.

  10. Rhianne 06/12/2011 at 11:39 AM #

    I think your husband is my new favourite person for tracking these down, how fun are they!! They look great too, I bet your blook club felt spoilt!

    I don’t think I’ll be baking anything to be honest, I’ll be going home though and people will be baking for me, hurray.

    p.s. your blog is snowing!!! 😀 my day is made.

    • Conversation Pieces 08/12/2011 at 2:54 PM #

      Yes it is! It’s actually a widget that I put on last year and then forgot about… so it’s obviously just kicked in again 🙂

  11. Danae 06/12/2011 at 11:44 AM #

    Zoe, you need to blow your own trumpet a little more in person, i had no idea that these were spelled out! I just knew that they were damn tasty. This is like the best thing ever – i am so nicking this idea!

  12. Mise 06/12/2011 at 12:08 PM #

    These are ever so charming! You could make a lovely blog header with them…

  13. threesmallapples 06/12/2011 at 12:48 PM #

    These are amazing!! Gingery, bookish and festive. Perfect!

    xx

  14. Lottie 06/12/2011 at 3:03 PM #

    So lovely…I am making gingerbread men and trees but don’t think they are going to be as cool as these.

  15. Lisa-Marie 07/12/2011 at 12:05 PM #

    Yum! and they are gorgeous. You could do a dusting of icing sugar? it would show up the shape a little more I think.

    • Conversation Pieces 08/12/2011 at 2:53 PM #

      Actually the final final cookies did have a dusting of icing sugar… but by dusting, I mean poured some over them… not such a great look 😉

  16. Fianceesarehumanstoo 08/12/2011 at 2:57 PM #

    So much of my thought space is taken up with what I’m going to bake once I’m back in my mum’s kitchen (she’s much better stocked than me!). Got plans to make these bad boys….http://pinterest.com/pin/271130840036147584/

    …basically candy cane cookies if you can’t be bothered following the link!

  17. Laura 31/12/2011 at 5:50 PM #

    ooh i want those cookie cutters, they look great!

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