With the festive season fast approaching, I thought it was about time to make some tasty gingerbread biscuits. You can spend a cosy evening or afternoon decorating them and you could even use them to decorate your home. Perfect with a freshly brewed cup of tea or use some string to hang them up on your Christmas tree- you can’t go wrong with gingerbread at Christmas. 

Serves: Makes about 15 cookies, depending on the size of your cutters.

Prep: 30 mins

Cook: 15 mins

Decorating: 30 minutes

Ingredients 

• 350g plain flour, plus extra for dusting

• 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

• 2 tsp ground ginger

• 1 tsp ground cinnamon

• 125g butter (softened)

• 175g light soft brown sugar

• 1 egg

• 4 tbsp golden syrup

To decorate

• Icing sugar (for dusting)

• Writing icing

• 2 packs of fondant icing

• Cake decorations

Special equipment required 

• Food processor

• Sieve

• Greaseproof Paper

• Christmas cookie cutters- You can get some here

• Rolling Pin

• Christmas fondant cutters

Instructions

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 breadcrumbs. Stir in the sugar. If you don’t have a food processor you can do this by hand but try to avoid handling the dough too much.

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 cling film and leave to chill in the fridge for around 15 minutes.

3. Preheat the oven to 180C/160C. Line two baking trays with greaseproof paper.

4. Roll the dough out to a 0.5cm thickness on a lightly floured surface. Using the cookie cutters, cut out the gingerbread men shapes and place on the baking tray. These do expand quite a lot during the cooking process so be sure to leave space between them.

5. Bake for 12–15 minutes, or until lightly golden-brown.  If you prefer a softer texture I would recommend cooking them for around 8 minutes. Leave on the tray for 10 minutes and then move to a wire rack to finish cooling. 

6. Once your biscuits are cool, lightly dust your surface and rolling pin with some icing sugar. Roll out your fondant icing to about 0.5cm. You can use the same cookie cutters or some smaller fondant cutters to cut out the same shape as the biscuit.

7. Use some writing icing and put a small amount onto the centre and corners of your biscuit. Then place your fondant shape onto the biscuit. You can then, using small amounts of the writing icing to add further decoration to your biscuits.

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 Written by Carolyn McCarthy

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