What's better than making your own advent calendar and getting the whole family involved?
This is a really fun project to make and eat!
For this project you will need 3 baking trays, a selection of festive cookie cutters (I recommend leaning towards smaller rather than large cutters), a skewer as well as 3 different size metal rings and string (see below advice).
You also need to chill the dough overnight in the fridge.
Ingredients:
For the biscuits:
125g Unsalted Butter
125g Dark Brown Soft Sugar
50g Golden Syrup
275g Plain Flour
1 Tsp Ginger
1 Tsp Ground Cinnamon
1/2 Tsp Nutmeg
1/2 Tsp Ground Cloves
1/2 Tsp Baking Powder
1/2 Tsp Salt
1 Medium Egg (white only)
For the icing:
1 Medium Egg (white only)
250g Sifted Icing Sugar
Sugar Sprinkles
How I make my homemade gingerbread advent calendar:
Place the butter, sugar and syrup into a pan and heat gently over a low heat, until the sugar has dissolved. Allow to cool.
Mix together the flour, spices, baking powder and salt in a bowl.
When the butter/sugar mixture has cooled, beat in the egg white and then pour the mixture into the bowl with the flour. Stir until fully combined.
Wrap the mixture in cling-film and place in the fridge overnight to firm up.
The following day, Line your baking sheets with parchment and have to hand a selection of cookie cutters in festive shapes. I recommend going on the smaller side as the biscuits will hang better than large ones.
Pre-heat your oven to 170ºC Fan.
Remove the dough from the fridge. Flour your work surface and roll out the dough to a 1/4 inch thickness. Stamp out 24 festive shapes, place them on your baking trays and make a hole in each at the top using a skewer.
Bake for 10-12 minutes until golden. Cool the biscuits on the trays until they are firmer, then move onto wire racks to completely cool before icing. Check the holes for the string and if need be, re-open any which may have closed with your skewer.
For the icing, beat the egg white in a bowl until it reaches stiff peaks (when you turn your bowl upside down, the egg white does not move). Add in the icing sugar and beat until the mixture is smooth and stiff yet pipeable. If need be, add a drop of two of water.
You can leave your icing white or use different colours with food colouring. I like red.
Put your icing into a piping bag with a plain or star nozzle, and ice the biscuits and decorate with the sprinkles. Make sure to pipe a different number on each one. Leave to dry completely.
Now you need to decide where you'll hang your mobile advent calendar. To hang, tie 3 long strings to each ring, spacing them evenly and feeding them from the smaller ring through the centre to the larger one. Tie them together at the top ensuring the rings hand horizontally.
Loop ribbons or coloured string through the biscuits and tie them to the rings, ensuring you distribute the weight evenly.
Stand back and admire your beautiful homemade edible advent calendar!
Advice:
I bought my metal rings (25cm, 20cm and 15cm) from here: https://www.littlecraftybugs.co.uk/25cm-white-metal-ring-flower-hoop-for-crafts-floristry.html
They also sell lovely festive string:
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