Rustic nut gingerbread hearts

The very best nutty gingerbread hearts. Rustic in appearance, with their wonderful aroma coming not only from the warming spice blend but also from a generous amount of nuts: almonds and walnuts. They taste wonderfully rich and nutty. These rustic gingerbread hearts harden after baking and need time to soften, which means you can bake them already — today even — and let them slowly mature while waiting for Christmas :). Notice that there is no added fat in the recipe; all the richness comes naturally from the nuts. The finishing touch is an icing made with walnut liqueur… My gingerbread hearts are already safely tucked away in tins, waiting for the festive season ;).

Makes approximately 40 cookies.

Ingredients for the rustic nut gingerbread hearts:

• 100 g honey
• 100 g golden syrup*
• 50 g brown sugar
• 200 g ground almonds (or ground walnuts or pecans)
• 100 g plain flour
• 100 g chopped walnuts or pecans
• 1 large egg
• 15 g mixed spice
• ¾ tsp bicarbonate of soda

All ingredients should be at room temperature.

Place the honey, golden syrup and brown sugar into a saucepan. Heat gently until the sugar dissolves, then leave to cool slightly.

Place the ground almonds, plain flour, mixed spice and bicarbonate of soda into the bowl of a mixer and mix to combine. Add the egg and the cooled honey mixture and mix again. Finally, add the chopped nuts and mix briefly. The dough will become thick but very sticky — it will not yet be suitable for rolling out.  Transfer the dough into a bowl, cover with cling film and chill in the fridge for 2 hours (or overnight). The dough will firm up and become easier to handle.

Remove the chilled dough from the fridge. Lightly flour the work surface and rolling pin, then roll out the dough to about 6–7 mm thickness. Cut out heart shapes and place them onto baking trays lined with baking parchment, leaving plenty of space between them.

Bake at 180°C for about 10 minutes, until baked through. Be careful not to overbake — burnt gingerbread cookies will become dry and bitter. Remove from the oven and leave to cool on a wire rack.

Ingredients for the walnut icing:

• 2 cups icing sugar
• 6 tbsp walnut liqueur

In a bowl, mix the sifted icing sugar and walnut liqueur using the back of a spoon until smooth and lump-free. If the icing is too thin, add more icing sugar; if too thick, add a little more liqueur.

Ice the gingerbread hearts and, while the icing is still setting, decorate with pecans if desired.

* Can be replaced with either artificial or real honey.

Enjoy!