English Ginger Biscuits – Cornish Fairings

English Ginger Biscuits

Cornish fairings are traditional English ginger biscuits commonly originating from Cornwall, in the West of England, the UK. Check out this easy Cornish Fairings Recipe!

I remember my Mum making these biscuits when I was a kid. I have stolen her recipe here (yet another one!).

In some ways, it is very similar to a gingerbread man recipe, but it produces lovely chewy ginger English biscuits instead. These are really very nice biscuits even if I say so myself!

Cornish holidays

We always went to Cornwall (South West of the UK) for our summer holidays.

My Dad would always take the kids (three of us) on three week family holidays without my mum.

These three weeks were her favourite time of the year as she could do what she wanted. And she did not have to look after us lot!

My Dad would dutifully prepare a packed lunch every day for us so that we could spend the whole day on the beach (rain or shine).

Being British we are used to having rain in the summer – we take an umbrella to the beach – not to keep the sun off but to protect us from the rain!

 

I can remember having Furniss of Cornwall Cornish Fairings as the best part of our lunch on the beach. They are real Cornish ginger biscuits.

 

These ginger fairings are real Cornish biscuits, and if you get them right they are chewy in the middle and crisp on the outside.

So when you cut out your biscuits make sure the biscuit dough is about a centimetre thick (1/3 inch) and your cutter about 6cm (2,5 inches) in diameter.

 

In the oven

Be aware that the biscuits will get much bigger in the oven as you can see from the photos. So make sure you space them with enough room between the cut-out biscuit dough.

Because I only have one silicone baking surface I cooked this in batches.

Make sure that you do not overcook them as that will make them very brown and dark. So keep an eye on them in the oven!

They are really tasty. This batch went within a day!

 

 

If you cut them any thinner then you will make harder biscuits without the internal chewiness. I did this around Valentine’s day when I produced these ones:

 

 

How to make English Ginger Biscuits – Cornish Fairings 

How to make Cornish Fairings

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This is a recipe for homemade Cornish Fairing Biscuits - ginger tasting English biscuits. They are delicious with a nice hot cup of tea or coffee.

Prep Time 15 minutes

Cook Time 15 minutes

Total Time 30 minutes

Ingredients

• 340g self-raising flour
• 225g Granulated or caster sugar
• 2 tsp Ground ginger
• 2 tbsp Lyle’s Golden Syrup
• 115g Butter (or Margarine)
• 1 tsp Bicarbonate of soda
• 1 egg

Instructions

1. Melt the golden syrup and margarine in a pan.
2. Sieve the flour and ground ginger into a suitable bowl and mix with the sugar.
3. Add the melted syrup and margarine to the mix and stir together.
4. Beat an egg together with the bicarbonate of soda before adding to the mix. Mix together until you have a nice biscuit dough.
5. Roll the dough into buttons about 1cm thick and 6cm diameter, place onto a silicone baking tray (or use baking paper), and bake in a moderate oven (180C) for 8-10 minutes. Keep an eye on them to make sure they do not overcook.

Notes

Serve up with a nice cup of tea for elevenses.

If you liked these biscuits you may also enjoy these recipes:

and another one we used to buy in Cornwall:

 

 

 

 

 

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