Animal Biscuits (cookies)

It was our nephew's second birthday the other weekend and so I decided to try out my animal cookie cutters and my new icing piper.



The result was fun and yummy, but next time I think that I will use a few more colours - maybe some yellows or greens would have brightened up the over-all effect a little...



The biscuits (or cookies if you live in North America) are just a simple sugar biscuit recipe - with flour, canola oil, sugar, vanilla, baking powder and water. I liked the flavour of them though - not to sweet, but still quite more-ish.

Food photos - recipes to follow

I've been terribly slack on the food blogging front (well on the blogging front in general) and so I thought that I would share a few photos of what we have been cooking (and eating) and that this might prompt me to get some recipes up to go with the images.

Beans on toast (with parsley, tomatoes and spices)

Lentil and rocket salad (with a tahini and lemon juice dressing)

Grilled veggies (mushrooms, zucchini and eggplant)

Rosemary roast veggies (pumpkin and sweet potato)

Polenta encrusted tofu (with mushrooms, asparagus and fried polenta)

Choc-chip cookies

Coconut sticky rice

Christmas gingerbread

Ingredients
4 cups of plain flour
1 & 1/3 teaspoons of baking soda
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1 teaspoons of ground ginger
1 teaspoon of cinnamon
½ teaspoon of allspice
½ teaspoon of cloves
1/3 cup of vegan margarine
2/3 cup of brown sugar
2/3 cup of molasses
1/2 cup of water


Sift the flour, baking soda, salt, ginger, cinnamon, allspice, and cloves together. In a separate bowl, cream the brown sugar, molasses, and 1/4 cup of water into the margarine.
Combine the wet and dry ingredients and add enough of the remaining water so that it all forms a dough that holds together without being sticky. Break the dough in half and roll into two balls. Place each ball inside a plastic bag and put them in the fridge for an hour or so.

Preheat the oven to 180º C. Grease a few baking sheets with margarine and cover with a thin layer of flour.

Cover (part of) your kitchen bench with flour and roll out the dough, one ball at a time, on to the surface. (A rolling pin makes this easier, but you can also just use a glass jar.) The dough should be fairly even and a little under 1-cm thick. (If it crumbles in place, rub a small amount of margarine into the crumbly area to help smooth it together).

Use 'cookie cutters' to cut the dough into your preferred shapes and peal away the excess dough from around the edges. Use a butter knife to help remove the cut dough from the bench to avoid breaking your baby cookies.

Place cut dough on baking sheets (leaving around 3-cms between them so they don't stick together) and put into over for around 6-10 minutes (depending on how hot your oven is - mine only take 6 minutes). Check them regularly because they can burn easily.

Remove the gingerbread from the oven when it is firm to touch and place on a cooling rack to cool down.

Once cool, decorate your gingerbread with icing, sultanas, lollies, or leave them plain because they are yummy just as they are.
I hope that everyone had a lovely day on the 25th!