4th Friern Barnet Guides do Random Bakes of Kindness Part 4

Barbara is a new Guide with us, one who throws herself into everything we do with gusto and enthusiasm, so her keenness for this Challenge wasn't unsurprising. She quite literally bounded into view, her hand waving in the air as I asked "So, who wants to do their Random Bake of kindness next week?"

Barbara chose Gingerbread easter bunnies - sometimes it's best not to question the thought process of your average 10 year old. And it's actually very seasonally appropriate taste-wise, if you ignore the Easter part of the equation. I think I might use this recipe again if we do Christmas bakes as part of our weekend away in December. I think these would make brilliant tree decorations, iced with white water icing and silver balls, and gingham ribbon through the top of star shapes. Plan!

Ingredients

250ml honey
250g soft brown sugar
150g softenend butter
100g ground almonds
400g plain flour
1 tsp cinammon
1/4tsp ground cloves
1/4 tsp ground cardamom
1/4 tsp ground mixed spice
4 tsp ground ginger
2 tsp lemon zest, grated
1 egg
1tsp bicarbonate of soda
2tbsp water

Method

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C/ Gas mark 4

Heat the honey, sugar and butter in a pan on a low heat, stirring until the sugar has dissolved (we had adult supervision for this bit, obviously) Remove the pan from the heat and pour it into a bowl to cool
Add the ground almonds, flour, spices, lemon zest and egg to this bowl and mix well
Stir in the bicarb and knead with your hands until the dough is shiny and stops sticking to the bowl
Roll out the dough on a floured worktop to a thickness of about half a centimetre
Cut out your shapes, rerolling until you've finished the dough
Place on baking trays lined with parchment and and bake for 14-18 minutes
Remove from the oven carefully and cool on a wire rack

Decorate with water icing.

We found these spread more than we would have liked so if the girls decide they want to do a weekend of Christmas prep then I might do a trial run in the coming weeks mixing it up with my gingerbread recipe that I've used for Christmas Gingerbread Guides previously.