Christmas is around the corner and the aroma of ginger, mulled wine, cinnamon sticks and oranges are wafting about in the air. I love Christmas and one of the traditions that we have in our house is making gingerbread. This started about 5 years ago when I used to bake gingerbread biscuits, put them in tins and give them to friends, colleagues and loved ones as gifts. Now, the little people and I bake them at Christmas time as they love to get involved and get their hands dirty and Mr Be just likes eating them, although he does get involved in decorating sometimes.
I received lots of messages today from people asking for my recipe after I posted an Instagram story of how to make them yesterday. So I decided to put the recipe up on the blog. Here it is…
Ingredients
350g Plain Flour
1 tsp Bicarbonate of soda
3 heaped teaspoons ground ginger
1 heaped tsp ground cinnamon
½ tsp mixed spice
125g Butter
175g Light soft brown sugar
1 egg
4/5 tablespoons golden syrup
Decoration
5 heaped teaspoons icing sugar
Water
How to make them
- Preheat the oven to 180C/gas mark 5. Grease and line a 2 large flat baking trays with greaseproof paper. You will probably need to use each tray twice depending on how many biscuits you cut out.
- Put the flour, bicarbonate of soda, cinnamon, ginger and mixed spice into a bowl (or food processor) and mix.
- Add the the butter and mix together until the mixture looks like breadcrumbs. When you have the right texture, stir in the sugar.
- Add the egg (you can beat it first if you wish) and golden syrup to the breadcrumb mixture and mix until the mixture starts to clump together. Get your hands in and bring together into a ball.
- Tip the dough onto a clean work surface and knead for a minute. Wrap the dough in Clingfilm and put in the fridge to chill for around 10-15 minutes.
- Now this is where the kids can get involved if you want them to lol. Take the dough out of the fridge and unwrap. I usually divide it into 4 pieces as my worktop isn’t huge and this makes it easier to roll out or give a bit to the kids and get them to roll the dough out. If you only have one rolling pin, try using a jar.
- Roll the dough out to a thickness of your liking. If you want thin and crisp gingerbread, then aim for 0.5cm. If you like them a bit thicker like me then aim for the 1cm. Cut out shapes using cutters and place them on your baking trays.
- Bake for around 8-12 mins. I usually take mine out after 11 mins.
- Leave to cool for 10 mins (they harden as they cool), then place on a wire rack ready for decorating.
- Put the icing sugar into a small bowl and add just enough cold water to make a thick paste, around 2 teaspoons should be enough. Spoon into a piping bag with a small nozzle or make a paper one, instructions can be found here. Then pipe away!
That’s it, I hope you have lots of fun making these,
Mrs. Be x
