Soft Gingerbread Christmas Honey Jumbles

Every year I am surprised when December comes around and I'm caught out by not organising my Christmas baking better. In fact I feel every year I might become even more disorganised.

I did move a number of years back from a house where I had a dedicated cake and crafting room to a smaller house where I need to pack away everything into separate rooms and cupboards each time I finish and clean up. Getting ready for a day of baking sometimes takes me an hour as I source all my equipment. I am trying at the moment to scale down and get rid of some superfluous items but it is much easier said than done. Instead of achieving a sleek streamlined kitchen, I have just accumulated a number of blogs and instagram accounts I follow that tell me how to do it.

Plus if I achieve my minimalist dream how would I have stuff like this adorable Christmas Greengate Deer to pop in my photo's.

Anyhoo, back to Christmas baking, and today I'm sharing a spiced up version of Honey Jumbles which is an Australian Biscuit (cookie) which was sold in supermarkets but discontinued a few years back. This basically turns an iconic Australian treat into a soft delicious fragrant gingerbread cookie. 

One of the key swap outs is golden syrup for honey which gives a richer flavour. If you are in the US you can buy Golden Syrup on amazon (Tate & Lyle GoldenSyrup) or substitute dark corn syrup or a mix of half honey/ half molasses.  Or in a pinch just use honey and you will still have a delicious cookie.

I've added some sweet fondant holly decorations made with a press out cutter/embosser for a simple pretty pastel Christmas theme. Click here for a link to holly cutter (AMAZON USA). You could easily leave off the decoration or use Christmas coloured sprinkles or decorations picked up at the local supermarket.

Happy Baking XX

Linda M

Honey Jumbles makes 10 - (Honey Jumbles were a cookie/biscuit sold by Arnott's Australia and discontinued. This is a soft gingerbread version.) Recipe can be doubled and will keep in an airtight container in the fridge or on the counter for 3 days.

40 g (1 3/8 oz) Unsalted Butter (if you use salted butter omit the salt added below) 

1/4 cup (125g or 4 3/8 oz)  Golden Syrup (can substitute dark corn syrup or a mix of honey and molasses) 

3/4 cup (115g or 4oz) - Plain / All Purpose Flour 

1 tsp ground ginger

1/2 tsp ground all spice

1/4 tsp bicarbonate soda (baking soda)

1/8 tsp salt

Icing (recipe for glaze icing below)

Melt butter and syrup until butter is just melted and mix to combine either in a saucepan over low heat or in microwave using short 20 second bursts.

Sift in all the dry ingredients and mix until combined and no lumps are visable.

Pop into fridge to chill for 30 mins.

Preheat oven to 170 C (340 F) fan forced. Dust counter lightly with flour, remove dough from fridge and give it a quick kneed to make it pliable.

Shape into 10 logs to place on baking tray, you can either do this by cutting the dough into two equal amounts, rolling each into a log about 35cm length and then cutting into 5 equal pieces around 7cm long.

Bake in the preheated oven for 12 minutes, allow to cool for 5 mins on tray and transfer to cooling rack.

Once cool you can mix up some icing to decorate by simply dipping the cookies into the icing. Add decorations if you like.

Simple Egg Free Glaze icing I sometimes use royal icing for these cookies but here I have used a simple glaze icing. The icing was best after a day when it had set hard, but was still soft to bite through. Recipe will actually make enough for a double of the cookies.

1 cup sifted Icing sugar (powdered sugar)

3 tsp boiling hot water

2 tsp corn syrup (or honey)

1/2 tsp colourless vanilla essence 

food colour as desired.

Mix together ingredients

I love when people share my blog ideas and give credit. All posts contain original ideas, photography and recipes by Linda McCubbin unless otherwise credited. Please feel free to link back to my blog for non commercial purposes.

Candylicious Macarons

I love it when I have left over macarons and get to have a play around. I had half a dozen of these pretty purple mac's sitting around plus a bit of the teal ganache and we always have sprinkles and candy sitting around so I whipped up these cute Candylicious macarons.

They might be my new favourite macaron, well to look at anyway. They look so pretty and party ready and of course they are a little bit inspired by Katherine Sabbath's beautiful cakes.

Mostly you just melt the ganache and spread it onto the top and gently push it over the edge so it dribbles down then press a few pastel pearls and sixlets onto the top. I added some mini shards of pastel chocolate as well.

You can buy your macarons or here is my recipe CLICK HERE

My macarons are coloured with Wilton Violet and the ganache is tinted using Americolor teal. The larger rounds are sixlets in shimmer white, shimmer pale pink and bright pink and I chopped some in half to give different heights. The mini pastel pearls are Queen Fine Food soft pearls in Australia you can pick them up at the supermarket. I have popped in a link to a similar US version below :)



Happy Baking

Linda Vandermeer is a blogger, baker, maker and author of the Children's cookbook Sweets on a Stick: More Than 150 Kid-Friendly Recipes for Cakes, Candies, Cookies, and Pies on the Go! Published in the USA in 2011 the book is still available at Amazon and many online bookstores.

Affiliate links may earn me money and contribute to supporting this blog.

Original ideas, photography and recipes Linda Vandermeer please do not reuse without permission.

A touch of Whimsy water colour cookies

Do you have a favorite cutter? One that when you pull it out you know that the cookies you make will be super adorable no matter what you do.

This Deer Aimee cutter from Cakes by Bien is one of my go to cutters it's just about as cute as you get, so when my friend asked me about it for her daughter's first birthday party I was a bit excited.

I know it's not completely normal to get excited about cookies but you know I write a blog about baking so you'll just have to humor me. Deer cookies = big excitement for me :)

Anyhoo the whimsical theme was based on the birthday girls super sweet bedroom colours so I came up with a set of cookies and macarons to tie in with it.

These 'A Touch of Whimsy' water colour cookies were some of the filler cookies. You know easy to make cookies that match in with the more complicated design but still look great. But I think you can tell from the first photo they are impressive enough to have all on their own.

And the fabulous thing about the technique in this tutorial is that you can apply it to pretty much any cookie shape with any colour theme and it will look just as pretty.

I'm hoping to pop up a video tutorial of me making these cookies on my you tube channel soon, plus I will definitely have tutorials for the other A Touch of Whimsy cookies soon.

Happy Baking

If you love these deer cookies check out my previous deer cookie posts here:
- Deer Heart Linzer Cookies
- Oh Deer! These cup edge cookies are too cute
- Sweet Deer cookies with silver leaf

A Touch of Whimsy Deer Cookies
I've added edible gold leaf to the cookies but if you don't have it just leave it off and they will still be super cute.

Deer Cookie Cutter (mine from Cakes by Bien)
Small Plastic Rolling Pin
Cornflour (cornstarch)
Ready Roll Fondant^ (around 300 grams (just under 11oz)
Roll out sugar cookie dough (recipe below)
Gel food colour (I used teal and violet)
brushes
water
1 sheet Edible Gold Leaf (I used transfer sheets)

^fondant dries out quickly, when not in use store in an airtight container or ziplock bag. To use fondant knead until pliable and smooth and roll out on a workbench dusted with cornflour (cornstarch)

Using the cookie dough recipe roll make deer shaped cookies. The dough will make around 60 small cookies. Bake as per instructions until golden.

Knead the fondant until pliable. Dust the workbench with cornflour (corn starch) and using the small rolling pin roll out the fondant until quite thin. Use the deer cutter to cut out a fondant shape.

Lightly brush the cookie with water and place the fondant onto the cookie. Gently press the fondant down onto the cookie using the rolling pin to smooth into place.

Take a small amount of teal food colour with the edge of a toothpick. Place some water into a spoon or paint palate and use a paint brush to mix with the water. The colour should be a bit washed out. Dry the brush a little on a piece of paper towel and then lightly brush the side of the paint brush along the fondant covered cookie. If the colour becomes too weak mix in a little more gel food colour.

Repeat the same with the violet. If you find the violet is too dark you may like to add a little rose or pink to the mix to brighten it a little.

Allow the food colour to dry.

Brush a little extra water onto the back of the cookie and adhere a small amount of gold leaf to the fondant covered cookie.

Allow to dry and store in airtight container for up to 5 days.



Sugar Cookie Recipe (makes 24 regular cookies or 60 small)

460 grams plain flour (16 1/4 oz all purpose flour)
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
230 grams unsalted butter (8 1/8oz)room temperature
220 grams caster sugar (7 3/4 oz superfine sugar)#
1 large egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
#use regular white sugar if you do not have caster/ superfine sugar

Sift together flour, baking powder and salt.

Cream butter and sugar in a large bowl using an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Reduce the speed to medium low, add the egg and vanilla and mix until combined. Reduce mixer speed to low and mix in the sifted flour mixture until combined. Wrap the dough in plastic and chill in fridge for 30 minutes or so.

Line a few baking trays with parchment/ baking paper.

Dust workbench with plain flour and using a large rolling pin roll out the dough until around 1/2 cm (1/4") in thickness. If the dough is to hard you may need to work/knead it a bit until you can roll it out.

Cut out cookies shapes and place the cookies on the prepared trays. (Knead and reroll dough as necessary, if it becomes to soft you can pop it back in the fridge.)

Pop the cut cookie dough trays into the fridge to chill again for around 30 minutes until firm (or in the freezer for 10 minutes).

Preheat oven to 160 C (320 F) and cook the cookies until they just start to turn golden, around 15 minutes (less or more depending on cookie size).

Cool on trays for 5 minutes and then carefully lift onto a wire rack to cool completely prior to decorating.

- Cookies can be stored in an airtight container for 1 week.

Linda Vandermeer is a blogger, baker, maker and author of the Children's cookbook Sweets on a Stick: More Than 150 Kid-Friendly Recipes for Cakes, Candies, Cookies, and Pies on the Go! Published in the USA in 2011 the book is still available at Amazon and many online bookstores.

Affiliate links may earn me money and contribute to supporting this blog.

Original ideas, photography and recipes Linda Vandermeer please do not reuse without permission.

Woodland party cake

I can not believe how long it has taken me to share all these pictures of the sweet woodlands party cake. I made it almost a year ago for my niece's 10th birthday. It is approx 6" by 6" high.

At the time I was playing around with some freeze dried fruit powder and I painted the cake with a mix of powdered raspberry mixed with rose spirits, lemon powder and some gel food colours.

I love the textured look that I achieved by rubbing in extra powder after hand brushing the cake.

I decided to apply the colour in quite a rough organic way, see below for example, and then my design was guided a little by the underlying colours, like a natural landscape.

The design centered on the mason jar party light idea I had so I started by drawing on my string with an edible pen (AmeriColor 2 Pack Gourmet Food Writer Set, Black Marker ) then I cut out pink and blue fondant by hand and a little grey for the lids and drew on a little line at the corner and popped the jars on the cake. Later on I used a little royal icing to pipe a little line of white on the side to look like reflected light.

I rolled out some chocolate flavored fondant to make the poles and shaped the birdies. Then I used some cloud cutters to make the white clouds, mine are from Cakes by Bien (see below for details).  To get them looking fluffy I rolled out the white fondant quite thick and then popped some plastic food wrap over the top then pressed the cutter down, see in the picture how it makes the edges look a bit rounded instead of being sharp and defined.

The cloud cutters were quite handy as I also used them for the trees and bushes.

I also hand cut the deer (as someone else was using my little Cakes by Bien Deer Aimee cutter which would have been perfect).

Okay instead of explaining every step I pretty much I hand cut everything without a template except the flowers and cloud cutters. Any of the white detail is piped royal icing (except the clouds and flowers) and the black is edible pen.

Tip. when applying the flowers, cut them out, keeping them in the plunger cutter, apply a little water or edible glue on the spot you want them and then push them out onto the cake using the plunger center to gently adhere them to the cake.

Inside the cake was strawberry cake with vanilla Italian Meringue Buttercream.

I prefer Americolor food writer pens. I used Bakels chocolate and white fondant and Satin Ice red fondant and Queens premix royal icing.



 Cloud cutters - used for clouds, trees and bushes - Cakes by Bien

Linda Vandermeer is a blogger, baker, maker and author of the cookbook ' Sweets on a Stick': More than 150 kid friendly recipes for cakes, candies, cookies and pies on the go!. Published in the US the book is available at most online book stores.

Affiliate links may earn me money and contribute to supporting this blog.

Original Ideas, photography and recipes by Linda Vandermeer do not reuse without permission.