Gingerbread Pastries

Gingerbread in Finnish is called Piparkakku, "Pipari". 
I asked a group my best friends to give me some ideas for what my blog should be called.
We came up with this Finn-Italian name. Piparicina translated means "small gingerbread" :)

Usually I always make gingerbread dough myself with my Mother's recipe but it's something we do just for Christmas. So this time I bought ready frozen dough to make these little pastries. 
If you can't find this or if you prefer some other flavour, you can use any cookie dough you want. 
You can also change the ingredients of the filling as you wish, the thing about this recipe is that it's quick and easy to make.

GINGERBREAD PASTRIES WITH COCONUT-VANILLA YOGHURT FILLING

1 packet of gingerbread (or other cookie) dough

Filling:
200 ml cream
100 g coconut flakes
200 g vanilla yoghurt 

Heat the oven to 200 C. Let the frozen dough warm in a room temperature for 20 minutes. Grease some small pie tins with butter. With half of the dough you can make little stars or hearts. Use a rolling pin to flatten the dough and make the figures you want. The other half you place in the tins covering them with dough. 

Place the figures and the cake tins on an oven pan and bake in the oven for about 10 minutes until they turn golden. Let them cool and meanwhile prepare the filling.

For the filling beat cream and add coconut flakes and vanilla yoghurt. Fill the pastries with the mix and add a little figure on top. You can serve them immediately or place them in the fridge waiting to be served.

 Best accompanied with good coffee or English afternoon tea.