Gingerbread Magi

Try making these Swedish gingerbread magi as an extra treat for Christmas, or perhaps as something special for Epiphany (6th January) once we’re all going back to school and work.

The pastry needs to rest overnight in the fridge so don’t forget to allow time for that.

Leave us some comments below or post on social media with the hashtag #lacomfortandjoy to tell us how you got on!

Ingredients

This recipe makes lots of biscuits so you could half the ingredients if you don’t want so many.

11­/­3 cup of water
1­/­4 cup of molasses or black treacle
2 tbsp ground cloves
2 tbsp ground cinnamon
2 tbsp ground ginger
2 tbsp bicarbonate of soda
1­/­3 tsp salt
750 grams caster sugar
425 grams of butter at room temperature
1.2 kg wheat flour

Method

  1. Boil the water, molasses cloves, cinnamon, ginger, salt and bicarbonate of soda for one minute, stirring.
  2. Allow to stand for 5 minutes.
  3. Beat the butter and sugar in a mixer.
  4. Add the lukewarm spice liquid. Then fork in the flour until you get a smooth shiny dough.
  5. Wrap in cling film and put in the fridge overnight or longer. It can be kept for 2 weeks.
  6. Heat the oven to 220°C/gas mark 6.
  7. Allow the dough to get to room temperature.
  8. Roll out the dough really thinly on a clean surface, dusted with flour and cut around your magi using the templates you can download from this page.
  9. Cover a baking sheet with parchment paper. Lay out your kings and bake for about 5 minutes.
  10. Once cool, decorate with white chocolate writings or icing.