Kids Dish

Batch #1 of the gingerbread daleks experiment began on Boxing Day - I originally planned to make them on Christmas Day, but, well, I got a Spyro the Dragon game in my Christmas stocking, so that put paid to that.

I promised Gillian over at http://www.foodpast.com/ that I would test the gingerbread recipe from the Jane Austen Cookbook, and it occurred to me a little while ago that to make Jane Austen Gingerbread Daleks would be a fine thing indeed.

And they do look pretty spectacular, I have to say.

Tragically, they taste awful. I can’t blame the recipe much for this - it’s entirely down to me putting too much ginger and nutmeg in. In the past, I have prided myself on spicy gingerbread, and then been criticised for not making it spicy enough to call it “spicy.” So, yeah. These are bad. Given their appearance, however (treacle rather than golden syrup!) I can officially call them Black Daleks, and the spice makes them appropriately evil. Not that there are, you know, any nice daleks.

Also, they are baked, unlike the original recipe, which bizarrely had you just set the biscuits aside without actually baking them.

Also, when making a butter-heavy biscuit dough, and you pop it in the fridge, don’t leave it in there for more than half an hour! Really, don’t.

You will note, I hope, that I decorated these particular daleks with almonds and currants rather than modern sprinkles and icing, so as to keep them properly authentic for the eighteenth century.

Oh, bad story. After I baked the second batch of blond daleks (more on this later), I was packing my batches away with Little Miss Nearly-Two, and she asked for a bikky. Actually, she asked for a dalek, as she knows exactly what daleks are. I hadn’t iced the blond daleks yet, and figured she’d like a pretty one, so gave her one of the daleks with almonds and currants. That’s right, the evil black daleks. Luckily she just bit an eyestalk, then handed it back with her eyes watering saying a reproachful “taste.”

I shrieked and gave her milk. I still can’t believe I did that to a toddler.