Gingerbread Men & Women

… and a few hearts (it was close to valentines day)

I thought it was about time that Ivy and I did some proper baking together, and what better to start with than Gingerbread men – or people, to be more PC. I nearly made the recipe from the Hummingbird Bakery book but that involved leaving the mixture overnight – will try that another time. This is good old Mary Berry, but probably fairly basic.

Ivy had a go at rolling out her very bit of dough and helping with the cutting and adding the eyes. She possibly enjoyed eating bits of the mixture more however and dusting flour all over herself and the floor?

I don’t know how good at biscuits I am, I always end up rolling the dough too thin and I slightly over baked some of them! Oh well, they did taste great in the end, I even love them when they’ve been in the tin a while and are little soft. This recipe made a ton but perhaps that is partly because of the rolling out issue.

150g plain flour
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
2 tsps ground ginger
100g Margarine (I used butter)
175g light muscovado sugar
4 tablespoons golden syrup
1 egg beaten
currants to decorate

Preheat oven to 1ª0 degrees. Lightly grease 3 baking trays
Measure flour, bicarb and ginger into a bowl, run on the marg/butter until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs then stir on the sugar. Add the syrup an d beaten egg then mix to form a smooth dough, kneading lightly with the hands towards the end.

Divide the dough in half and roll out one half to  about 5mm thick. Cut out gingerbread men and ladies and place them on the baking traces, decorate with the currants creating eyes and mouths, buttons etc. Repeat!

Bake in the oven for about 10-12 minutes until slightly darker in colour. Cool slightly on the tray then lift off on to a wire rack.

Good fun to eat too – biting off limbs and heads.