Celebrating Bear West Fest takes one tough cookie. Hairy cookies aren’t exactly ideal but an appreciation of hair is not necessary to enjoy biting into a little bit of butch.
Ginger Men
200g unsalted butter 200g brown sugar
1 egg lightly beaten 500g plain flour
2 teaspoons of ginger 1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 tablespoon honey
Beat the butter and sugar together until just mixed and creamy.
Don’t whip too hard…it will make your cookies spread.
Beat in the egg until well mixed, add spices and honey. stir in flour – mix until a dough begins to come together, wrap and put in the fridge for half an hour.
Take dough from fridge and place on a floured board and knead briefly. Roll out to 5mm thick… if you want to get all Martha, use two guide sticks either side of your rolling pin to get an even thickness. Use a cookie cutter to press out your shapes and transfer to a non-stick paper lined baking sheet. Put back in the fridge for another half an hour. With the oven set to 180C bake cookies for 10-12 minutes. Cool on a wire rack.
Getting Dressed
Royal icing mix Water
Silver cachous Edible glitter
Chocolate sprinkles Black food colouring
Make up icing as per instructions on royal icing packet. You will need two consistencies of icing, one a ‘stiff’ mix – soft peaks should form when beaten; one ‘flow’ mix – drop some of the icing back into the icing bowl, it should disappear within ten seconds.
Add food colouring or cocoa as appropriate to colour your icing, professional gel colours are handy as they won’t dilute your icing much. You can get fancy with piping kits, but really a zip-lock sandwich bag is perfect for this job. Fill your bag zip it up, snip a tiny corner off and Ta-DA! Perfect icing bag and you don’t end up with icing escaping from the wrong end. Use the stiff icing mix to pipe outlines and details, wait until dry. Fill outlines with flow mix to colour in. Decorate with cachous and glitter.
Enjoy with a tall glass of milk and a soundtrack from Bear Force One.
Written By Zoe Carter
