Tent Ready · Week 2 · A practice bake with no clock and no surprise. The same thing repeated until one skill is solid.

Week 2: Biscuits aka Cookies

Baked by Garrett (Bear) · · Updated

AI summary

Garrett baked Prue’s ginger biscuits away from home with a toddler, no scale and an oven running 75 degrees hot. They tasted good; the icing was thin and the decoration not very uniform. His biggest lesson: use a scale.

Before the bake

As an American watching The Great British Bake Off (GBBO), it always grinds my gears hearing them call cookies biscuits. To be honest it had me quite confused and I still google what the difference is. You always hear Paul Hollywood talk about the snap of a biscuit and Prue would mention the crunch, so this inspired me to go for Prue’s ginger biscuit recipe. This is also good to learn for building a showstopper structure, which is why I chose it.

A few points of concern as I lead into week 2:

  • I’ll be traveling this week and using my parents’ kitchen
  • No childcare help, so I will be juggling a toddler and this bake. (Please take a nap little buddy)
  • My parents’ oven has a broken temp gauge so it’s a guessing game
  • My decorating skills are beginner level and I won’t have Jana to cheer me on in the back
  • Guest judges: going to ask a friend in the area to give his review
  • Hot outside which equals hot kitchen
  • No scale, so I’m going to be a classic American using measuring cups

After the bake

Well, I did it! This week had some serious nightmares but at the end of the day I survived well and I’m happy with the taste. All my points of concern became true. Toddler didn’t nap much so a lot of tears were shed, I won’t say who (me). The oven was set at 350 but was running at 425, so I had to set it to almost 300 to get it close to correct. Would love to find an appliance sponsor who can help get my parents a new oven.

My ginger biscuits tasted pretty good and the decorations weren’t too bad. As Jana stated to me, “not very uniform”. Honestly had to pivot my design about 4 times to come up with something realistic.

My challenges and lessons learned

  • If you’re icing the full biscuit go thicker (I feel like I went a little too thin on these)
  • Make sure you have an oven with accurate temperature
  • Icing got kinda hard, so it was hard to do cute/perfect designs. Maybe too much powdered sugar? Needed some more liquid
  • Making and doing black food coloring is a terrible idea. It’s a lot of food coloring and it bled into the other colors after 1 day
  • Toddler distraction made me have to break this challenge up into making the dough the night before and finishing the next day
  • Doing a face design is never a good idea
  • Might have over baked them a little
  • Use a scale! Omg I am forever going to be a scale baker from now on. It makes so much more sense.

I call this week a win with good flavors and a good starter for decorating. Next week should be really interesting with weather at home reaching over 100 degrees F, it will make for a nice hot kitchen.

This recipe has its own page: Iced Ginger Biscuits. Reviews and questions about the recipe live there.

Ricotta BearRecipe by Garrett (Bear)

Iced Ginger Biscuits

Spiced ginger biscuits cut into squares and ovals, then outlined, flooded and piped with colored royal icing. A test of even rolling, clean cutting and steady icing.

Prep
2 hr
Bake
12 min
Rest
1 hr
Total
3 hr 12 min
Makes
12 biscuits
Level
hard

Recipe originally written in grams and auto-converted to US cups. Conversions can be slightly off, especially for flour, so weigh when you can.

For the biscuits

For the royal icing

Equipment

  • 8 cm square cutter
  • 10 cm oval cutter
  • 2 baking sheets, lightly greased
  • 2 sheets of baking paper
  • Wire rack
  • Piping bags with No. 1 and No. 3 writing nozzles

Method

  1. Cream. Beat the butter, muscovado and molasses together until combined, then add the egg a little at a time.
  2. Make the dough. Sift in the flour, bicarbonate of soda, spices and salt, and stir until it comes together.
  3. Chill. Flatten the dough between two sheets of baking paper and chill for about an hour, until firm.
  4. Roll and cut. Heat the oven. Roll the dough out to 5 mm between the paper, cut 6 squares and 6 ovals, lift them onto the greased sheets and chill again until firm. Oven: 375°F / 190°C (170°C fan)
  5. Bake. Bake for 8 to 12 minutes, until the edges are just starting to brown. Leave them on the sheet for a minute, then cool completely on a wire rack.
  6. Make the icing. Whisk the egg whites with 3 tbsp of the icing sugar and the lemon juice, then work in the rest of the sugar until smooth and thick. Do not over-beat it.
  7. Colour and loosen. Divide the icing. Colour four small portions blue, yellow, green and red and keep two white. Loosen each with water, a drop at a time: piping thickness for the colours and one white, runnier flooding thickness for the other white. Fill the piping bags.
  8. Decorate. Outline and flood the biscuits with white, then pipe the coloured details. Add a drop of water or a little sugar to any icing that is too thick or too runny.

ricottabear.com/iced-ginger-biscuits · US measures, metric in brackets

The judging

Verdict pending

The judge has not tasted this one yet. Check back next week.

Reviews + questions

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