Pfeffernusse/Lebkuchen

I have very strong memories from when I was young going to visit my Granny in Bristol. Being from Germany, she was very fond of these yummy little spicy icing-coated biscuits which I now know are called either Pfeffernusse or Lebkuchen, and she always had some in whenever we visited her. Around Christmas time, Sainsbury's sell packets of Lebkuchen which I buy in bulk, but then this year I decided that along with buying the Sainsbury's ones I should actually have a go at making my own.

So once again I made use of my broadband connection and hunted around for some recipes. I found these two recipes online (from Channel 4 and All Recipes), and decided to go for a combination of the two, mainly using the Channel 4 recipe but adding in the molasses (treacle) from the All Recipes page. I used pomegranate molasses in this recipe, but I did not use the plum jam or the chocolate suggested in the Channel 4 recipe, preferring instead to simply cover the biscuits in icing.

Pfeffernusse

These little biscuits turned out really well, although I had to halve some of them as I'd made them far too big. I also foolishly ran out of icing part way through, so some biscuits only had two coats of the icing, but they still tasted suitably sweet and spicy. The only issue I came across was that there was just too much of the ground black pepper in these for my own personal preference, so I think next time I'll halve the amount of black pepper that I add.

I like to think that my Granny would have been proud of me for making these.

Beckie.

Glorious Gingerbread

I decided to be fairly ambitious for my next project. I have always had a deep love of gingerbread, and I naturally started by making some simple gingerbread biscuits and then having my housemate and I decorate them. Stars seemed to be the best shape, and went down very well with my friends. I used another BBC Food recipe, and although it is a simpler recipe aimed at children baking, it actually makes a really nice gingerbread.

Pretty gingerbread

Then, I was yet again inspired by the Great British Bake Off, and the episode that featured the amazing gingerbread structures. I knew full well that I was never going to be able to make anything as incredible as James' gingerbread barn, or Danny's gingerbread Big Ben. However, I couldn't resist the idea of making my own gingerbread structure. So I had a chat with L, and she agreed to help me out with the design (being the crazy-smart physicist that she is, she's very good with planning and designing things). Being an Egyptology student, we agreed that there was only one way to go with this. We designed and made a gingerbread pyramid. Using the same recipe as before, but adding in 2 tablespoons of black treacle to give it a bit of a kick, I cut the dough around a 10 inch square-based pyramid template that L had made for me. Using the scraps of dough, I made a (as it turns out hugely out-of-proportion) palm tree to go alongside the pyramid.

Once the triangles had baked and cooled (and been cut up a little after they had morphed a bit out of shape during the bake), I mixed up a batch of yellow icing sugar, and L and I girded ourselves for the task ahead - constructing the pyramid. This took a lot of work, and I was definitely grateful that L was helping me with it. We set the base of each pyramid wall in a line of liquid icing sugar, before icing each edge and slotting in another wall. The whole thing was built around a peanut butter jar, as it was the only way to keep the walls up. Once the icing had set, any gaps or cracks in the pyramid were filled with even more icing and the walls were decorated and then left to set. The palm tree was glued on with more icing sugar, and then digestive biscuits were crumbled up as desert sand at the base of the pyramid.

A Gingerbread Pyramid of Awesomeness

I must admit, one of the most fun parts of the whole process was smashing the pyramid with a hammer in order to actually eat the damn thing.

After the epic pyramid, I next decided that had I had to attempt to be even more ambitious with the next project. I decided to celebrate L's love of (obsession with) Minecraft, so we built a Minecraft castle. This was even trickier than the pyramid, with the slightly more intricate crenellations, but luckily L had made another amazing template, and the cut-outs made it through the bake in one piece. Again, icing sugar was used as the glue, and it worked well enough until we foolishly tried to move the castle, and it promptly collapsed in a heap. I think I might try using caramel as the glue next time...

Minecraft eat your heart out

Beckie.

Biscuits

My next baking attempt was biscuits. I am an avid follower of the amazing Total Basset Case, where I saw a recipe for Sugar Cookies.

I made my own changes to the recipe, replacing the bourbon vanilla with vanilla extract and spiced mead (2 teaspoons of spiced mead and a few drops of vanilla extract). This resulted in some rather delicious cookies that went down very well at the Bioshock birthday party we held for my housemate that week.

Spice Mead and Vanilla Sugar Cookies.

Beckie.