Gingerbread People (makes 12-14)

Gingerbread People by The Fat Foodie

At Christmas time you can’t beat munching delicious gender-neutral biscuit gingerbread people. I just love the fragrant Christmassy warmth that ginger brings to biscuit dough. I might be a bit odd in this respect, but I don’t like my gingerbread to be really hard. There’s nothing worse than hurting your gums on a piece of overly-hard biscuit, so I much prefer a gentle, crumblier, but still robust biscuit texture. This is achieved by using custard powder in the mix, which also adds a vanilla flavour to the gingerbread people.

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Empire Biscuits (makes 14)

Empire Biscuits by The Fat Foodie

Empire biscuits are very popular in Britain, particularly in Scotland, but they actually originated in Germany and were known as ‘Linzer biscuits’ and ‘Deutsch biscuits’. After World War One, in Britain their name was changed to ‘Empire biscuits’ and that’s how they’ve stayed ever since. In Ireland instead of serving them topped with a glacé cherry they decorate theirs with a sprinkling of desiccated coconut, which I think sounds delicious!

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Palmiers (makes 8)

Palmiers by The Fat Foodie

My friend came for lunch the other day and in advance I’d taken some ready-rolled puff pastry out of the freezer to make us a quiche lorraine. However, after it had defrosted I unrolled it and, upon getting a lovely waft of butter scent, I remembered that it was actually a sheet of Marks and Spencer’s all-butter puff pastry. Now, as much as I like my friend who was coming for lunch, I couldn’t bear to waste this beautiful pastry on a simple quiche. As a result, I made the quiche lorraine with a homemade thyme pastry crust and devoted the all-butter puff pastry to making a batch of palmiers instead.

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