Irish Style Gingerbread Men: Every Old Bakery's Favourite

Looking to beat the January blues? Have a jolly little gingerbread man, made with what is to become my go-to recipe!

The gingerbread man of my childhood... a biscuit soft enough to yield easily to a single bite, with a delicious bendy chewiness and a clean, pure flavour of golden syrup and ground ginger, all topped off with naff-as-hell cooking chocolate and sweets to decorate. This style of gingerbread man is ubiquitous in Ireland, appearing in every bakery around the country from small towns to cities. It's like they all have a recipe that was taught to them in culinary college, but in all the nearly 7 years I've been blogging, I've never quite captured it.

Over the course of my blog, I have done a few different recipes for gingerbread:

• Right back at the very start I had my recipe free from dairy, gluten, and egg which I made for my friend who was intolerant to all of the above;
• I had my Dinosaur Kimberley recipe, which was essentially a regular roll out biscuit dough with some spice and golden syrup for flavour;
• I then did an egg-free gingerbread recipe, which was essentially ginger flavoured shortbread;
• After that, there was the gingerbread skeletons recipe which was my first attempt at the kind of chewy bakery style gingerbread that I love, but wasn't quite there yet;
• And most recently my Gingerbread Village Cake, which featured a cakier style that's suitable for building houses but still nice to eat.

As you can see, I've never really had a go to recipe. Mostly because all the recipes I used didn't produce a gingerbread that I really liked; they were either to dry and crunchy, too sturdy and shortbready, too cakey, or too soft and squishy. None of the recipes I've used have that X-factor that I wanted.

(Credit: the Daily Express)

Until now! From my trawling of the internet, I found a recipe that is pretty much bang on that delicious flavour of my childhood (and adulthood, admittedly: I cannot resist the charms of a pretty little gingerbread man when I pass my local bakery). Shared to the RTÉ website is a recipe for Nanny Nellie's gingerbread men, and whoever Nanny Nellie is she most likely got that secret recipe because it makes a gingerbread man almost identical to any you'd find in a bakery.

INGREDIMENTS

Makes 24 gingerbread men

12 ounces (340 grammes) plain white flour: spelt, wheat, or gluten-free

1 to 2 tablespoons (15 to 30 millilitres) ground ginger, depending on how spicy you want it

1 teaspoon (5 millilitres) bicarbonate of soda

4 ounces (115 grammes) salted butter, or margarine for an authentic experience

6 ounces (170 grammes) soft light brown sugar

3 ounces (85 grammes) golden syrup

1 medium egg

Up to 1 tablespoon (15 millilitres) water, to adjust

Optional: other ground spices to taste, for example cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, etc.

To decorate

1 bar (150 grammes) milk cooking chocolate

Sweets such as Smarties, M&Ms, or Jelly Tots

METHOD

• Preheat the oven to 180C (350F) and line one or two baking sheets with non-stick paper.
• Sieve the dry ingredients together onto a sheet of non-stick paper, or into a roomy mixing bowl. Set aside.
• In a mixing bowl, beat together the butter, sugar and syrup with an electric mixer until well combined. Beat in the egg.
• Add the dry ingredients bit by bit until the mixer can no longer mix, then turn the mixture out onto a lightly floured work surface and bring the dough together by hand.
• Depending on your egg, you might need to add a little water to help the dough come together, which is perfectly normal. The dough should be soft, but not at all sticky.
• This dough can be used immediately and doesn't need chilling: roll out to a thickness of an eighth inch (3 millilmetres) on a well floured surface, making sure to move it around every so often to prevent sticking.
• Cut out shapes and arrange them about an inch (2.5 centimetres) apart on the tray(s). The scraps re-roll very well.
• Bake in the preheated oven for 7 to 9 minutes, or until they look set. They will still be a little soft, but the edges will be set nicely. Don't let them brown too much!
• Allow to cool on the trays momentarily before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
• To decorate, melt the chocolate according to the instructions. Dip the gingerbread man heads and feet in the chocolate, and attach the sweets with chocolate to look like buttons. Draw smiley faces on with melted chocolate using a cocktail stick.

Adapted from: https://www.rte.ie/lifestyle/recipes/2018/1107/1009352-nanny-nellies-gingerbread-men-today/

Death by Coffee: for Those Who Prefer Coffee Cake to Chocolate Cake, like Me (Wheat Free)

Chocolate cake is nice, and I like it as much as the next woman, but in my opinion there is something tastier: coffee cake!

I find the flavour of coffee a little more nuanced and interesting than chocolate. There's something slightly bitter and sharp about it, in comparison to chocolate which is a little smoother and rounder tasting. Coffee makes for more interesting flavour pairings, too.

My Dad concurs: coffee cake is his favourite, too. Which is why I look forward every year to making his birthday cake.

I think my fondness comes from a delight in traditional Irish bakery coffee cakes. There's something about their naff margarine buttercream and crunched up nuts or digestive biscuits on the sides that just speaks to me. The local bakery, before I was taken on by new management, used to make a fabulously naff coffee cake that I would buy every time I had a few extra euros at the end of the week.

I know I've done lots of coffee cake recipes before—on account of it being my favourite—but this one is slightly different: this cake uses the same recipe as my recent American style Devil's Food Cake, but uses coffee instead of hot water and cocoa powder. This makes for a super soft, fluffy, and moist cake.

So, let's get started!

FREE FROM

☑ Soya (check for soya lecithin)
☑ Yeast
☑ Wheat
☑ Nuts

CONTAINS
☒ Eggs
☒ Dairy (dairy substitutes can be found in italics)
☒ Gluten
☒ Refined sugar products


INGREDIMENTS
For one large 8 inch (22 centimetre) round cake

• 7 ounces (200 grammes) white spelt flour
• 2 ounces (55 grammes) cornflour
• ½ teaspoon (3 millilitres) baking powder
• ½ teaspoon (3 millilitres) baking soda
• 6 ounces (170 grammes) butter, at room temperature, or margarine
• 6 ounces (170 grammes) caster sugar
• 3 medium eggs
• 2 teaspoons (10 millilitres) vanilla essence
• 3 ounces (85 grammes) brown sugar
• 6 fluid ounces (180 millilitres) strong coffee, either brewed or instant

For the buttercream,

• 1 pound (455 grammes) icing sugar, sifted
• 4 ounces (115 grammes) butter, at room temperature
• 4 ounces (115 grammes) vegetable fat, at room temperature
• 2 tablespoons (30 millilitres) instant coffee granules
• 2 tablespoons (30 millilitres) boiled water
• 2 teaspoons (10 millilitres) vanilla essence

For assembly,

• 2 ounces (55 grammes) icing sugar
• 1 teaspoon (5 millilitres) instant coffee
• 1 teaspoon (5 millilitres) boiled water
• 12 chocolate coffee beans, or other chocolate decoration

METHOD

• Preheat your oven to 170ºC (325ºF, Gas Mk. 3), and grease and flour an 8 inch (22 centimetre) deep round cake tin.
• Prepare the cake according to this recipe, using coffee instead of cocoa powder and hot water, and sifting the cornflour in with the flour, baking soda, and baking powder. Bake for 40 to 45 minutes, or until fully baked and a skewer comes out clean. Cool as instructed.

For the icing,

• Dissolve the instant coffee into the hot water and allow to cool to room temperature.
• Beat the vegetable fat until creamy with an electric mixer, then add the butter. Continue to beat until fully combined.
• Beat in half the icing sugar on a low speed, then the coffee, then the rest of the icing sugar. Adjust the consistency with some milk or water if needed.

To assemble:

• Cut the dome off the cake, then slice in half horizontally. Attach the top half of the cake to its platter with a tiny smear of the filling to make the bottom layer. Spoon a third of the icing onto the bottom layer, spread out with a palette knife (or butter knife) until it's about half an inch (1 centimetre) from the edge.
• Place the bottom half of the cake on top upside down, so the flat surface is not the top of the cake. Press gently to glue together, and chill in the fridge for about 10 minutes to firm up.
• Reserve about half of the remaining icing for piping, and use the other half to ice the side of the cake. Ice a one inch (2 centimetre) border around the top of the cake also.
• Make some glacé icing by dissolving the coffee in the water, and mix it into the icing sugar with enough hot water to make a running consistency. Ice the top of the cake up to the border. Allow to crust.
• Using the remaining icing, pipe 12 rosettes around the edge, one in the centre, and a shell border around the foot of the cake. Decorate with some chocolate sweets, or chocolate coffee beans.
• Allow to set for about an hour before serving.

Here, in this picture, you can see the consistency of the cake itself: fluffy and rich and moist and nomnomnom... I could have eaten this whole thing. It is to be enjoyed, however, in small portions, and will keep for up to a week in an airtight container. So, practise some restraint.