Pear Gingerbread Tart in Mace & Salted Caramel – The SpiceBox Organics Challenge Part 3

Would you look at this beauty?!! I feel like I’ve outdone myself with this glory!

*wipes brow, takes a bow, adjusts halo, walks off to applause*

And would you believe I hated gingerbread as a child? It’s something I’ve come to love only late in life. As a child, I don’t ever remember eating it. Our Christmas dinner was always a Chinglish feast of roast turkey, with stir fried brussel sprouts and rice stuffing. I could put it down to not actually being able to find gingerbread in the 80s in HK. It was pretty rare and my Chinese mother has never been inclined to baking.

My happy moment came when I was browsing through Ikea’s wonderful food section years ago, right at the height of Christmas fever (you can imagine how hellish that experience was!). The frozen section held a veritable cornucopia of amazing bakeporn – ready-made gingerbread being one of them. I gave it a whirl for the sake of the kid, in the hope that he would love it, which he did. But I found myself addicted. Just roll and bake for a few minutes and VOILA!

This year, I’ve gone a step further. Cutting out all the pressure and LOADS of time off your Christmas preparations – use ready-made sauces and doughs to help you.  I used a jar of ready-made salted caramel sauce (courtesy of Marks & Spencers but easy enough to make your own), some mace from Spicebox Organics and ready-made gingerbread dough (Ikea’s finest). This dessert took all of 30 minutes in total and looks so pretty. It’s pretty heavy on the sugar decadence, so go easy if you want to avoid diabetes…

For those of you wondering what mace is, it’s the vein-like petals that cover the nutmeg seed. It smells (unsurprisingly) very strongly of nutmeg, though it is slightly more delicate in flavour. I’ve seen lots of recipes using mace in cakes and biscuits. Here I infused my salted caramel sauce with two to three mace petals for 20 minutes in a bain-marie (place in a small heat proof bowl over a pan of simmering hot water).

I am off to Germany on Saturday to experience the full glory of the Christkindlmarkt (that’s Christmas market for the non-German speakers!) and fill my belly with real German gingerbread, bratwurst and schnitzel. So I wish you all a wonderful Christmas with your loved ones! I hope Santa is good to you  See you in the New Year!

By Sharon Maloney, Jasmine & Ginger

For Sharon Maloney’s Pear Gingerbread Tart in Mace & Salted Caramel recipe, please click here.