Did you miss Politiken MAD’s Christmas baking workshop? Fear not—here’s the delicious recipe for Christmas muffins, where familiar holiday flavors and warm spices meet a soft, super‑simple buttercream.

Christmas baking with Trine Hahnemann: Honey cupcakes filled with apricot jam and topped with buttercream

Honningmuffins_mette_mølbak_trine_hahnemann

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For 12 muffins and 30-40 spice cookies

Equipment: A muffin tin and a mini gingerbread man cookie cutter

Ingredients

Muffin batter

Butter for greasing the tin

4 whole eggs

100 g brown sugar

225 g honey

250 g flour

2 tsp baking powder

½ tsp cinnamon

½ tsp ground cloves

½ tsp ginger powder

Spice cake for decoration

1 dl light syrup

200 g brown sugar

1 tsp ground ginger

1 tsp cinnamon

125 g soft butter

1 dl heavy cream

½ tsp baking soda

500 g wheat flour

Buttercream

350 g butter

350 g powdered sugar

Topping

1 jar apricot jam

200 g dark chocolate 70%

Muffins: Grease your muffin tin. Separate 3 eggs into whites and yolks. Place the whites and yolks in separate bowls. Whisk the 3 egg yolks and 1 whole egg, brown sugar, and honey until thick and frothy.
Sift flour, baking powder, and spices into another bowl, and fold it into the egg mixture.
Beat the egg whites until stiff, and gently fold them into the batter. Pour the batter into the greased muffin tin, and bake the muffins at 150 degrees Celsius for 25-30 minutes.
Insert a knitting needle or meat skewer into the muffins; if no batter sticks, they are done. Let them cool in the tin for 30 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
While they cool, prepare the buttercream.
Start by beating the butter until soft and airy. Then beat in the powdered sugar, whisking for a few minutes until smooth and fluffy.
Melt the chocolate over a water bath. You are now ready to assemble the muffins.
Cut off the tops, so you have a hat and a base. Dip the top/hat in chocolate and place it on parchment paper to set.
On the base, place a teaspoon of apricot jam, then put the buttercream in a piping bag and pipe a small ring of buttercream around it. Place the hat on top, add a small dollop of buttercream on top, and place a small gingerbread man on top. See the recipe below for cookie decoration. You can also decorate with a bit of gold dust or whatever you have on hand.

Spice cookies for decoration

Mix syrup, brown sugar, spices, and butter until soft and smooth in a large bowl. Add the cream and mix again. Sift baking soda and flour together and add it to the syrup mixture.
Knead the dough well on a floured surface.
Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius/convection. Roll the dough very thinly on a floured surface and cut out shapes using various sizes and forms of cookie cutters.
Place the cookies on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and bake for about 8 minutes. Let them cool on the parchment paper on a wire rack.

Tip:

This dough is really good for kids, and it’s extra fun if you have several different cookie cutters. I’ve been collecting cookie cutters for years, and I now have around 100, which makes baking gingerbread cookies even more enjoyable. The cookies in the picture were baked by children, so please excuse the slight touch of what I would call ’caramelization.’

Trine Hahnemann