Gluten Free Gingerbread Cookie Recipe (and Homemade Plum Jam!)

 

 My sister-in-law is gluten intolerant and I find the fact that a lot of my absolute favourite baking treats are off limits to her. So this year I am going to try and either source some great recipes or adapt my own to make gluten-free treat-eating less limited!

One of the first things I made were these Gingerbread objects. They were going to be gingerbread men but I was missing the key item - the cutter. So thanks to Holly, I made stars, flowers and birds.
Unfortunately my sis-in-law missed out on tasting these goodies so Dave and I have been munching away at them this week.

Verdict: The mix was pretty sticky and hard to work with, but the resulting biscuits still kept their shapes. They are the kind of biscuit you need to eat with a cup of tea - tasty but quite dry.
Eating them, you wouldn't know these were gluten free which overall makes them a success for me!

Here is the recipe I adapted from Hansells

1/3 cup golden syrup
1/4 cup softened butter
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon allspice
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 egg
2 cups Gluten Free baking mix (or 2/3 cup each of rice, potato and tapioca flours and 1/2 tsp of xanthan gum)
- See more at: http://www.hansells.co.nz/Recipe/XnaI4IupI0Kea3WwqpVOYw#sthash.tpLJvjX0.dpuf

Ingredients:
1/3 C Golden Syrup
1/4 C butter
1/4 C Brown Sugar
1 tsp Baking Soda
1/2 tsp Cinnamon
1/2 tsp Allspice
1 tsp Ginger
1 Egg
2 C Gluten Free Flour (I used mostly a pre-mix, but used cornflour and buckwheat flour to roll the dough out)

Icing:
1 T butter (softened)
2 C icing sugar
Hot water to mix

Method:

• Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees Celcius.

• Melt together the butter and golden syrup.

• Mix in the rest of the ingredients with a wooden spoon.

• Roll out dough on a lightly floured (Gluten Free flour or cornflour) surface. 

* I tried this and used way too much cornflour for no result so I rolled out the dough on a sheet of baking paper

• When dough is around 1/2cm thick, cut out shapes with cutters and place on a lined baking tray, leaving room for spreading.

• Bake for 12 min. They will harden as they cool.
  
  
• To make icing:
  Mix butter and icing sugar with sufficient water to get icing to a thick piping consistency. Beat until white.
  Put icing in a piping bag with a small nozzle and decorate gingerbread as desired. Be creative!

The other baking exploit that we undertook last weekend was to begin our journey as jam-makers. We stripped our over-laden plum tree of the last of its fruit and Dave set out with the fun job of pulling the stones out of 2kg of plums.
The cooking process took longer than expected but we ended up with delicious Plum Jam! slightly tart but still sweet and sticky. We filled 4.5 jars (500g) and we have already delved into the half jar. YUM!

Our recipe was simple:

Plum Jam

2kg plums - stones removed
2kg white sugar

-Bring to the boil and reduce heat and simmer until a blob of jam dropped onto a cold plate wrinkles when you push your finger through it.
-Pour into hot sterilized jars and seal.
-Make pretty labels for the jars.

Ingredients:
1/3 cup golden syrup
1/4 cup softened butter
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon allspice
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 egg
2 cups Gluten Free baking mix (or 2/3 cup each of rice, potato and tapioca flours and 1/2 tsp of xanthan gum)

Icing
1 Tablespoon butter
2 cups icing sugar
few Teaspoons of water to get it to the right consistancy
Method:
Preheat oven to 180C
Melt golden syrup and butter in large bowl.
Allow to cool and add sugar, baking soda, spices, egg and all the flours.
Beat with wooden spoon until forms ball - should still be a little sticker than standard flour would be
Transfer dough onto very lightly floured board. Roll out until around 1/2 cm thick.
Cut out men.
Place on non stick tray 3 cm apart.
bake for 12 mins, until firm but not rock hard as they harden as they cool.

Icing
Mix butter with 1/2 cup of icing sugar until white. Slowly add rest of icing sugar and water until firm consistancy is reached.

Ice men once cool, store in an airtight container
- See more at: http://www.hansells.co.nz/Recipe/XnaI4IupI0Kea3WwqpVOYw#sthash.tpLJvjX0.dpuf