Gingerbread Christmas Tree

Missy Wombat's Note:

Adapted from the December 2005 volume of Notebook

• Total Time: 55 mins
• Prep Time: 30 mins
• Cook Time: 25 mins

Ingredients:

Yield: 1 tree

• 500 g plain flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 3 teaspoons ground ginger
• ½ teaspoon cardamom
• 1 pinch salt
• 150 g unsalted butter , softened
• 175 g dark brown sugar
• 150 g honey
• 1 egg
• 1 egg white
• 240 g icing sugar , sifted, plus extra, for dusting
• silver cachous , to decorate

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 180 deg Celsius.
2. sift flour, baking powder and soda, spices and a pinch of salt into a bowl.
3. Using an electric mixer, beat butter and brown sugar until fluffy. Add honey and egg. Beat until combined.
4. On low speed, beat in sifted dry ingredients until mixture comes together.
5. Divide the dough in half. Wrap separately in plastic. Refrigerate for 30 minutes.
6. Trace 19 cm, 15 cm, 10 cm, 7.5 cm and 4.5 cm stars on to cardboard and cut out. For the 2 smaller sizes cutters may able to used.
7. Roll out dough halves until 4 mm thick. Using star templates and 7.5 cm cutter, cut out 3 stars of each size from dough. Using the 4.5 cm star, cut out as many stars as possible from the remaining dough.
8. Place same sized stars together, 3 cm apart, on baking paper-lined oven trays. Bake larger stars for 8-10 minutes; smaller stars for 5-7 minutes or until deep golden. Stand biscuits for 5 minutes. Transfer to wire racks to cool.
9. Place eggwhite in a bowl. Stir in icing sugar, 2 tablespoons at a time, until combined.
10. Stack the largest stars at offset angles, placing 2-3, 4.5 cm stars in between. Glue each layer with icing.
11. Continue stacking in decreasing size until all 7.5 cm stars are used. Finish with one 4.5 cm star flat and a second one upright. Use icing as 'glue' to decorate tree with cachous.
12. Tie up remaining small stars to look like gifts. Leave tree to set for one hour. Serve dusted with icing sugar.

Reviews

[Thorsten]

I love this gingerbread especially for the cardamom in it. It gives the cookies a very special flabour. I used fresh cardomom, cruched it in a mortar and sieved it to get grounded cardamom. Fresh cardamom has such a fresh taste, great. The ginger in here is not too overhelming, spicy, but well balanced. The combination of honey and dark sugar give the gingerbread a delicate sweet note, malty and smooth. I followed the recipe and didn't change a thing (except that I used fresh cardamom). The cutting need some time and if you don't want to make a tree I would suggest to use a cutter. The handling of the dough was easy, baking too. The cookies came out great. The taste was better next day, when all the different flavours have had time to melt. A wonderful - different - gingerbread recipe. Thanks for sharing.

[tfortracey]

I make this every year and I get rave reviews compared to the "other trees" at the office. I have 15 different sized star cookie cutters and I double the recipe to make a tree about a foot high. I use fresh ground cardamom as well.