Gingerbread Dinosaurs

My eldest son loves to bake and a couple of nights ago we read the story of the Gingerbread Man before bed and he asked me if we could make some in the morning, I never pass up the opportunity to bake with my sons and so of course I said yes! Whenever I make these biscuits I always use Mary Berry's Gingerbread Man recipe (from her Ultimate Cake Book). This is such a simple dough to make and you can use it to make traditional gingerbread men (or women) or use it to cut any shape you like - in my dino-mad sons case we used it to make Gingerbread Dinosaurs!!! My Step Dad Ian got me these awesome little cutters for Christmas and they are a must have for any dinosaur mad kid who likes to bake because they not only are a great shape and size but they have the added stencils to imprint the dinosaurs skeleton onto the cookie.This recipe makes about 20 cookies.


Ingredients

12oz Plain Flour
1 tsp Bicarbonate of Soda
2 tsp Ground Ginger
4oz Margerine
6oz Light Brown Sugar
4 tbsp Golden Syrup
1 Egg (beaten)

How To Make

1. Preheat the oven to 190'c and lightly grease 3 baking trays. Measure the flour, ginger and bicarb into a bowl. Rub in the margarine until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. 

2. Stir in the sugar and then add the beaten egg and golden syrup to the dry mixture. Mix to form a smooth dough. 

3. Divide the dough in half and roll out one half onto a lightly floured surface to about 5mm in thickness. Cut out the gingerbread dinosaurs, imprint firmly with the stencil and then transfer to the baking tray. Repeat with the remaining dough. 

4. Bake for 10-12 minutes until slightly darker and then transfer to a wire rack to cool. I decorated these by piping white glace icing into the bone imprints on the cookies. 

Rainbow Cake

I have always loved the look of a Rainbow cake, when you cut that icing and inside are beautiful bright layers of sponge - its so pretty! For Christmas I got a set of rainbow cake tins and, after a few practise runs, my first project was to do a Paw Patrol themed cake for my youngest sons 2nd Birthday. I decided to do 6 layers, one for each characters colour, and used a simple vanilla sponge recipe as I didn't want to risk flavours tampering with the bright colours. When it comes to colouring the sponge I found it doesn't really fade during baking so whatever shade it is in your bowl will be the colour it comes out.Also don't use liquid food dye as you would have to add too much to get the right colour and then the sponge would be too wet. Use gel or paste colours. When the cake was cut I was so happy to see 6 bright layers of sponge revealed and I had one very happy little boy with his paw patrol birthday cake. This recipe will make a 6 layer 7 inch rainbow cake.

Ingredients

20oz Margerine
20oz Caster Sugar
10 Eggs
20oz Self Raising Flour
3tsp Vanilla Essence
3.5 tsp Baking Powder
3.5 tbsp Milk
Food colourings

How To Make

1. Preheat your oven to 180'c and then grease a baseline 6 tins.

2. Cream together the margarine and sugar until light and fluffy. Then beat in the eggs, one at a time, adding a little flour each time. 

3. Gently fold in the flour and baking powder and then mix in the vanilla and milk. Split the mixture evenly between 6 bowls and then colour each one to the desired strength. I chose pink, yellow, blue, green, red and orange. 

4. Place into the prepared tins and bake for 20 minutes until risen, golden and a skewer comes out clean. Allow to stand for 5 minutes before turning out onto a cooling rack. 

5. Once the cake has completely cooled assemble the layers using buttercream between each layer. Once its assembled ice the outside however you wish. I covered mine with white fondant and then decorated with fondant paw prints and a spray that I also made myself.