Ever since November hit and the evenings started getting darker I can’t stop thinking about all things Christmas! I love the smells of Christmas and the pretty lights everywhere and giving presents to people I love! I know it’s early, but this year I’ve decided to put together hampers for my family so I need to practice!

Last night, gingerbread men were on the menu! Now, I’ve never baked biscuits before so I will be having to try out all sorts of different recipes to get them right. I only made a small batch because I wanted to see how they turned out before using all my dough. They turned out great, but weren’t as I feel gingerbread men should be! I think gingerbread men should be quite hard and these are chewy – which is FINE but not as I had expected, so I will use the rest of my dough to make gingerbread stars and decorate them with lemon icing!

Ingredients

  • 350g plain flour
  • 1tsp bicarbonate of soda
  • 2tsp ground ginger
  • 1tsp ground cinnamon
  • 125g butter
  • 175g light soft brown sugar
  • 1 free range egg
  • 4tbsp golden syrup

Method

  1. Sift together the flour, bicarbonate of soda, ginger and cinnamon and pour into the bowl of a food processor. Add the butter and blend until the mix looks like fine breadcrumbs. Stir in the sugar.
  2. Lightly beat the egg and golden syrup together, add to the food processor and pulse until the mixture clumps together. Tip the dough out, knead briefly until smooth, wrap in clingfim and leave to chill in the fridge for 15 minutes.
  3. Preheat the oven to 180C and line two baking trays with greaseproof paper.
  4. Roll the dough out to a 0.5cm/¼in thickness on a lightly floured surface. Using cutters, cut out the gingerbread men shapes and place on the baking tray, leaving a gap between them. If you want to use them as decorations, use a skewer to make a small hole.
  5. Bake for 10-15 minutes, or until lightly golden-brown. Leave on the tray for 10 minutes and then move to a wire rack to finish cooling. Be careful because they can literally catch and burn within seconds, so check them after 10minutes.