24 Advent biscuits made using a spicy vegan gingerbread, baked plain or with colourful sugar panes, and decorated with piped or rolled icing.
Ingredients
For the biscuits
- 65g soft dark brown sugar
- 30g black treacle
- 35g golden syrup
- 80g dairy-free margarine
- 25ml unsweetened oat milk
- 295g plain flour
- 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
- 1½ tsp ground ginger
- ¾ tsp ground mixed spice
- 24 vegan clear boiled sweet
To decorate
- 75g white piping icing
- Fine ribbon or cotton twine for hanging
Method
- Preheat the oven to 180°C/gas mark 4.
- Line 3 large baking trays with baking parchment.
- Put the sugar, treacle, syrup and margarine in a saucepan and heat gently. Stir continuously, until melted together. Stir in the oat milk and take the saucepan off the heat. Leave to cool for 10 minutes.
- Sieve the flour, bicarbonate of soda and spices into a bowl and make a well in the centre. Gradually mix in the melted ingredients to make a firm dough. Knead gently until smooth.
- Roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface to a thickness of about 5mm. Cut out festive or other shapes of your choice using 7-8cm cookie cutters, re-rolling the dough as necessary.
- Transfer the shapes to the prepared trays. Using a small festive or other shaped cutter, approximately 4.5cm, cut out a shape from the middle of each biscuit. Gather up the trimmings and re-roll to make 24 biscuits in total. You can leave some of the biscuits whole if preferred.
- Place a sweet in the centre of each cut out. If the biscuits are to be hung up, make a small hole near the top of each biscuit using a skewer.
- Bake for about 15 minutes until the biscuits are risen and the sweet has melted and filled the space. If the mixture has spread over the melted sweet, then, while the biscuits are still warm, gently, with the tip of a rounded knife, push the mixture back so the melted sweet pane is fully visible.
- Once done, take out the oven and leave to cool completely on the trays and then carefully peel away from the parchment.
- If the biscuits are to be hung, thread the twine or string through the hole before decorating.
- To decorate: If using a readymade icing tube, pipe a design and advent number straight from the tube as instructed. If you are using homemade icing either put it in a piping bag fitted with a small plain piping nozzle or in a small baking parchment piping bag and snip off at the end to make a small tip.
- Leave the icing to dry for about an hour before hanging to display.
