Gingerbread Christmas Tree

With Christmas just around the corner.  Don't Buy It, Bake It! I'm sure you have family and friends who would love to receive a baked gift especially made by you this Christmas.

The lovely team at @Darrelllea recently sent me a variety of their delicious products to do some Christmas baking.  

These Gingerbread Christmas Trees are so cute, fun and easy to make.  There is also hidden surprise treats in between the layers of gingerbread cookies when you break the cookie open. Ps. I couldn't bring myself to breaking it open so I took a photo before attaching the top of the trees with royal icing.

Hope you get a chance to try out some of Darrell Lea's yummy products in your Christmas baking or you can simply just eat them because they are so delicious.

Happy Baking xo

Gingerbread Christmas Trees

Ingredients

· 125 grams butter
· ⅓ cup brown sugar
· ½ cup golden syrup
· 3 cups plain flour
· 2 teaspoons ground ginger
· 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
· 2 teaspoons baking soda
· 1 egg
· 1 teaspoon vanilla essence

Royal Icing

· 2 cups icing sugar
· 1 egg white
· Water (approx 2-4 tablespoons)
· Food colouring (electric pink – americolor) 

Decorations

· Traditional Milk Chocolate (Darrell Lea)

· Mega Minty Moments (Darrell Lea)
· Bullets: White Chocolate (Darrell Lea)

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 180°C. 

2. Line two trays with baking paper.

3. Place butter, brown sugar and golden syrup in a microwave-safe bowl and microwave on high for a minute or until butter is melted. Set aside.

4. Sift the flour, spices and baking soda into a large bowl. Add the butter mixture, egg and vanilla essence, stir until combined.

5. Divide dough in half and roll dough to 3 to 5 mm thickness and place paper triangle template and use a knife to cut it out (these Christmas trees are 10cm by 15cm tall)

6. With a third of the triangles cut out the middle for the hidden treats. Each tree is made with a base, middle cut out and a decorated top.

7. Place onto baking trays and bake for 8-10 minutes or until golden brown.

8. Allow cookies to cool completely before decorating.

Royal Icing/ Decorating

9. Place icing sugar, egg white and 1 tablespoon of water into a bowl and using an electric beater beat on low until all ingredients are combined and then on high for 3 minutes until mixture is smooth. Add more water if the mixture is too thick.

10. Add desired food colouring and place royal icing into a piping bag and pipe around and fill triangles which are going to be decorated. Allow them to dry before piping the details on top and adding the decorations. Allow them to dry completely overnight.

11. Pipe a small amount of icing around the back of the cut out triangle and place it on top of the base of the Christmas tree. Fill with treats, pipe around the top of it and place the decorated tree on top (if you want to add more treats in between the layers, stack two triangle cut outs).

Tips

· Remember to allow cookies to cool completely before icing.
· If the icing appears too thick add more water and if the icing appears too runny add more icing sugar.
· Icing consistency – piping 25+ seconds for the icing to disappear (lettering & line work)
                               – medium 15 seconds for the icing to disappear (outlining & flooding) 
                               – flood 8-10 seconds for the icing to disappear (flooding & wet-on-wet) 

Did you bake this recipe?

Remember to tag @youcanbakeittoo on Instagram & hashtag #youcanbakeittoo 

so I can see your wonderful bakes.