🎄⭐🎄☃️🍫🍪❄️Claire's Crazy bakes and Kitchen Hacks Chapter 56 - CHOCOLATE-DIPPED Gingerbread Cookies: Part 2🎄⭐🎄☃️🍫

This is a follow on from:
🎄⭐🎄☃️🍫🍪❄️Claire's Crazy bakes and Kitchen Hacks Chapter 55 - Gingerbread Cookies: Part 1🎄⭐🎄☃️🍫 and is a learning experience for me, and maybe you too! I have never really worked with melted chocolate, except making ganache, but certainly not like this.

After completing the baking, cooling, and setting of the cookies in the first installment, it was time to decorate. Tired of royal icing, I thought dipping the gingerbread cookies would be a great hack! Less mess, less fuss, right? Hahahahaha. No. Look, I have no regrets. They turned out great and are fucking DELICIOUS but it was a lot of work! At least I had four very helpful "Christmas elves" ( @zakludick ,@matthew-williams , @aimeludick and @merenludick ) who turned it into a very efficient production line! Who knows! I might even turn this into a side business for Valentine's, Easter, Mother's Day, Father's Day Halloween, and Christmas again! We just have to get the packaging right and the decorations a bit more thoughtful.

So what do you need?

Ingredients:
The biscuits in part one 🎄⭐🎄☃️🍫🍪❄️Claire's Crazy bakes and Kitchen Hacks Chapter 55 - Gingerbread Cookies: Part 1🎄⭐🎄☃️🍫
1 kg baking chocolate (NOT MILK CHOCOLATE)
Edible glitter: we used 3 different colours: gold, red and green
Sprinkles: we used two super cool assorted sprinkles that included teeny tiny gingerbread men and Christmas trees! Too cute!

Tools

• Spray and cook to get the wax paper to stick to the trays
• Wax paper (not baking paper) cut to the size of:
• As many trays as you can find for the cookies to rest and for the
  chocolate to set on
  *Skewers and toothpicks to ensure the holes are big enough to get
  the ribbon through
• A gas stove to keep close by (Hazard warning: do not kick this
  over. Remember it is an open flame, so take appropriate
  precautions.)
• Two pots, one big and one smaller that can fit inside the big pot
  and fit well so that it is stable
• A big spoon for stirring (apparently a heat-resistant plastic spoon
  is best here as wood retains water and water is melted chocolate's
  worst enemy).
• Lots of ribbon - remember, the whole point is to be able to hang
  the completed cookies from the tree!

First, we had to start with securing ribbons to the cookies before dipping. The holes we made while the dough was raw shrank substantially and we needed to widen them ever so slightly. We learned, after a few "casualties" (which were later dipped in chocolate and scoffed anyway) that forcing a skewer or even a toothpick through the existing hole was not the way to go. Gentle rotation was key. It basically enabled us to "sand" away at the hole, enabling us to make it the right size for the ribbon to fit through the cookie.

The next step was to secure the ribbon. The ribbon needed to be long enough to be able to fit over a Christmas tree branch, without causing damage to the cookie. It was also important to make sure the knot was tied securely! We didn't want them falling off the tree!

While @aimeludick was busy with this, I got going with melting the chocolate. You do not require anything else in that pot except chocolate! We are talking about the inner/ smaller pot now where the actual chocolate melting will take place. In the big pot, place two kettles worth of boiling water.

Place the bigger pot on top of the strategically placed gas stove. Light it to turn it on. Place the smaller pot inside, insuring it is secure and won't slide around or fall in to the pot while stirring.

Chop the chocolate into tiny pieces for easier melting. Place the chocolate into the smaller pot. You will need to constantly stir the chocolate to ensure thorough and consistent melting.

It was very difficult to resist sticking a whole spoon of melted chocolate in my face, but I did manage. Plus the kids were watching 🤣🍫

Once we had a good few biscuits with ribbons secure and baking trays prepared and at the ready (wax paper - shiny side up!) we could begin dipping. This was much easier than I thought. I used the ribbons to hold onto the bidscuit and then dunked the whole thing in, ensuring really good and thick coverage. I turned the gas off at this point as the water underneath was more than warm enough to keep the chocolate melted.

Next, we placed them gently and well-spaced on the prepared trays.

We decided to fill one tray at a time. Each person was assigned a single pot of glitter or sprinkles.

While that person was decorating, I could prepare another tray of chocolate-coated cookies that would be passed to the next person, and so on.

Obviously, it was important to add decorations before the chocolate began to harden. This actually took quite a while. Long enough for us to decorate thoroughly, but not too long. We were able to get them to set overnight at room temperature inside the ovens (obviously, while they were off. lol.

By the end of it, all of us needed a serious bath! We were all covered in sprinkles and glitter and chocolate!! We licked as much of it off ourselves before heading upstairs for a proper soak.

And Taadaa!! Here are the finished products!

We then bagged them for gifting to our friends. All of our family is out of Cape Town, so it's just us for Christmas, but that means more spoils for us! In fact, this will be our first Christmas ever with just the 5 of us :)