Plantified Aquafaba Gingerbread Snow Flakes

Gingerbread is a great favourite at Christmas!
I love to make these and package up as little gifts to give to neighbours and friends.
Packaged into a little cellophane bag and tied with ribbon, and finished with a little gift tag, they look impressive and are a lovely home made treat!

This Gingerbread recipe is my own recipe, using Aqua Faba (The liquid from a can of Chickpeas or Butterbeans!) as an Egg replacer and spiced to my own taste!
It is nicely spiced and the resulting dough has the most wonderful texture!
Just look at the texture of the dough below!

Even though these look quite complicated, they are in fact quite fun and easy to make!
Give them a go, and see how tasty they are.

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Raspberry Mousse Imprime Entremet, as seen in the Free Mousse E-book for members of Plantified.

Enjoy

xxx
Katrina

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Plantified Aquafaba Gingerbread Snowflakes
(Makes approx 16 – 3 ½ inch / 9cm Snowflake cookies)

Ingredients:

70 grams Light Brown Sugar
25 grams Vegan Butter 
115 grams Black Treacle (or Molasses)
65 grams Aqua Faba (Liquid from a can of Butterbeans or Chickpeas)
330 grams Plain Flour
5 grams Bi-carbonate Soda (Baking Soda)
0.6  grams Ground Ginger
0.6  grams Ground Cloves
0.6  grams Allspice
0.85 grams Salt
2 grams Cinnamon

Fondant Icing Snowflakes:

250 grams Ready Made Fondant Icing
Blue Gel Colour
Silver Shimmer Spray
Rainbow Dust Glitter
***Tylose or CMC Powder to harden if packaging the cookies.

Creme Icing:

30 grams Vegan Butter
80 grams Icing Sugar
5 grams Vanilla Extract
Drop of flavouring (Peppermint, orange etc)
Touch of colouring.


Method:


-Weigh out and add the Vegan Butter to the mixer bowl and cream the butter.
-Add the Light Brown Sugar.
-Add the Treacle (or Molasses).
( Don’t be stupid like I was and try to drizzle it into the mixer bowl as it’s beating!
It will catch the balloon whisk and climb up into the mechanism and there’ll be lots of F’ing and blinding while you have to stop and clean it all up!
So,turn off the mixer, add it to the bowl and then mix in. 🙂 Trust me! )
-Once combined, add the Aquafaba and mix together. (Liquid from a can of Butterbeans or Chickpeas)
It will make a brown soupy mess!
-Weigh out the dry ingredients in a separate bowl and mix together to combine.
-Add the dry ingredients about a third at a time until it is all in the bowl.
At this point I took off my Balloon Whisk, and used the K paddle as the dough will get stiff.
The Dough should come together, and feel squishy but drier to the touch, not sticky.
It should form a nice ball when you roll it.
If it is too dry and crumbly add the tiniest bit more Aquafaba until it is perfect.
-Take your dough and turn it out onto a matt.
-Knead it until it comes together in a smooth ball, and then cut into equal thirds, and wrap in Plastic wrap.
-Chill for a few hours to firm up, so it rolls out nicely.



Baking:

-Heat the oven to 180c
-Lightly dust the work top surface with flour to roll out the Gingerbread Dough.
-Dust the surface of the dough lightly before rolling out with a rolling pin to approx 3mm in thickness.
-Taking your round,scalloped edged cutter, cut out all the biscuits and place them on parchment paper on a tray.
-Re-roll any scraps to get another round of Biscuits cut out.
-Bake for approx 8-10 mins and keep an eye on them so they don’t over bake.
-They will rise nicely, do not let them get brown, or they will be over baked.
-They will firm up more as they cool down.


Fondant Icing Snowflakes:

-Measure out 250 grams of Ready Made Fondant Icing.
-Knead the Icing until it is soft and Pliable.
-If you want to colour your icing, Divide the icing in half and add a dab of Colour gel and massage it in once soft until completely mixed in.
-Dust your work surface with Icing sugar lightly so it doesn’t stick as you roll it out.
-Roll out the first colour of Icing into a smooth piece approx 2 mm thick.
-If you want to add a pattern texture,roll out the icing to 3mm thick and then roll over with your texture roller.
-Take your cutter and cut out your large fondant snowflakes, 8 of each colour.
-Place them on parchment paper and set aside.
-Repeat with the second colour.


Decorative Snowflakes:

-Take the remaining icing in each colour and again roll out to approx 2 mm thick
If you are going to bag your cookies, you will need to add Tylose or CMC Powder to the icing to stiffen and harden it, or the Snowflakes will break in the bag.
If you are not going to package them, and just serve on a plate, they will be fine if you are gentle with them.
-If Using CMC or Tylose to harden it, take a small amount of powder, and knead into the Icing before cutting out the shapes and work fairly quickly before it sets!
-Take your Snowflake Plunger Cutter and punch out 8 of each colour.
If there is any extra, do a few spare incase you break any!
-I will put mine in the dehydrator for a little while to dry out a bit to make the Decorative Snowflakes easier to handle.
Don’t do this for the Base Snowflakes though, as you want them to be soft.

Adding Shimmer and Glitter:

-Once all the Fondant Snowflakes and Decorations are done, get your Shimmer Spray ready to go.
-Work a few at a time, by spraying lightly with the Shimmer Spray, and then tapping some Cupcake Glitter onto each snowflake using a soft brush.
You want to tap the glitter on whilst the shimmer spray is still wet, so it sticks!

Making the buttercream:

-Place the Vegan Butter/Margarine into a bowl and add the Icing Sugar, and Extracts, along with a tiny dab of colour and mix together until creamy.
-Place the Buttercream into a Piping bag with a small tip, ready to use.
-Use a complimentary flavouring such as Orange, Peppermint, Cinnamon etc.

Putting together the Gingerbreads:

-With the piping bag, pipe a little Buttercream onto the centre of each Biscuit , with a little dot for each arm as shown, and take a large Fondant Snowflake and apply to the cookie.
-Gently Press down around the edges so they stick without flattening it completely.
-If any Buttercream squashes out from under it, use a wooden skewer to sweep around the edge and clean up the buttercream off the biscuit.
-Repeat until all the cookies are done.
-Then, place a pea sized dot of Icing, into the centre of each Fondant Snowflake in order to stick on the Snowflake Decoration.
-Apply the opposite coloured Snowflake to the Fondant Snowflake for maximum contrast.
-Set aside to dry.
-Once packed in cellophane bags and tied up, these will stay fresh and tasty for months!