AWC Update #14 - Magical Cooking

Our team have been studiously combing through spellbound tomes to uncover the most magical recipes.

These are complex and intricate spells and so we wouldn’t be surprised if you needed to practice 4 or 5 times between first printing your Marvellous Munchies Makers and Christmas day… and then of course testing each and every one of those cookies to make sure they all taste great! You can never test and practice too much!

Cinnamon Cookies

Ingredients:
250g white sugar
250g unsalted butter
450g Flour
1 egg
1 tsp cinnamon

Method
With the butter at room temperature, mix with the sugar until combined.
Add the egg and Cinnamon and mix well.
Add the flour in batches while mixing until it forms a soft, smooth dough.
Roll the dough out onto a lined baking tray to a 3-4mm thickness and cool in the fridge for 30 minutes
Using the cookie cutters, cut shapes into rolled out dough. If you keep the excess dough in place and do not remove it the cookies will expand less in the oven, keeping more definition.
Bake for 10 minutes at 180 C (fan oven) or until golden brown.
Cool on the oven tray.
If you left the excess dough in place, be careful when removing the cookie shapes to avoid breakages.

Sugary Stronghold Gingerbread

This recipe is enough to make a small tower, so multiply the amounts as needed.

Ingredients:
250g unsalted butter
200g dark muscovado sugar
7 tbsp golden syrup
600g plain flour
2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
4 tsp ground ginger

Plus, Icing sugar, flaked almonds and other decorations

Method:
Melt the butter, sugar and syrup in a pan.
Mix the flour, bicarbonate of soda and ground ginger into a large bowl, then stir in the butter mixture to make a stiff dough. If it won’t quite come together, add a tiny splash of water.
Roll out the dough onto a sheet of baking paper to a thickness of 5-6mm and cut out the shapes needed.
For any roof section you can use flaked almonds and gently poke them into the dough to form a roof tile pattern.
Bake at 180 C (fan oven) for 12 minutes or until form and a little darker at the edges.
Leave to cool for a few minutes to firm up, then you may need to trim the shapes slightly to get clean, sharp edges.
Leave to cool completely.
Put the egg whites in a large bowl, sift in the icing sugar, then stir to make a thick, smooth icing. Spoon into a piping bag with a medium nozzle. Pipe generous snakes of icing along the wall edges, one by one, to join the walls together. Use a small bowl to support the walls from the inside, then allow to dry, ideally for a few hours.
Once dry, remove the supports and fix the roof panels on. You may need to hold these on firmly for a few mins until the icing starts to dry. Dry completely, ideally overnight.
Decorate as you like with icing sugar and any other decorations you like.

Our scholars also discovered a brilliant video for decorating snowflakes cookies.

Make sure you check out our previous update on food safety before heading into the kitchen with your 3D prints.

What special family recipes do you have for making magical cookies? And do you have any tips on making a spectacular gingerbread centrepiece? Share them in the Facebook Group!