The Recipe

Ingredients:

For the gingerbread

• 200g Plain flour
• 50g Butter or margarine
• 50g Honey
• 50g Soft brown sugar
• Cold water to mix
• 1 Heaped teaspoon ground ginger
• 1 Rounded teaspoon baking powder

For the filling

• Chocolate (milk or dark)
• Marshmallows
• Raisins or other dried fruit

Method:

Put the sugar, honey and butter in a pan

Warm gently and stir until the ingredients are well combined

Don't overheat this mixture or it will burn

Sift the flour into a large bowl and add the baking powder and ginger

Mix the dry ingredients together

Pour in the sugar/butter/honey mixture from the pan - all in one go

Mix thoroughly with a wooden spoon

The mixture will eventually form soft, doughy crumbs

Add a small splash of cold water and mix again - the crumbs should start coming together into a dough

Turn the dough out onto a floured board and knead it a little to bring it together completely

Roll the dough out to about half a centimetre thick

Cut circles out of the dough

If you don't have a large circular cutter (I didn't) use a bowl or other object from the cupboard - using the funnel gave me about 12cm (5 inch) circles

I tried first using the top of a pint glass, but the resulting circle was too small to be able to enclose any decent amount of filling

Preheat the oven to 180 C

Add the chocolate, raisins and marshmallows, cut into smallish pieces

Place them on one half only, then fold over the other half and crimp around the edges with a fork

You may need to bunch up the trimmings of dough, knead and re-roll in order to cut out enough circles - I just managed to make five out of mine

Place the empanadas on a cookie sheet.

Bake in the oven for 10 to 12 minutes, or until evenly golden brown

Allow to cool on the tray for five minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely

the filling will be quite dangerously hot for a while - do not be tempted to bite into one until they have cooled sufficiently

Empanadas

Ordinarily, empanadas are savoury things - little pastry shells filled with meat, fish or vegetables in a piquant tomato-based sauce. I thought it might be fun to make a dessert version.

Alternative Fillings

Diced apple, cinnamon and brown sugar would work well, I'm sure - alternatively, large slices of fresh peach, or blueberries would be interesting.