I Bake For Attention: Gingerbread Men - 100th Post Christmas Special!

Let’s hear those sleigh bells ringing!

I love Christmas. Christmas really and truly is the most wonderful time of the year. I love that everywhere gets decked out with lights, I love singing Christmas songs, I love watching Christmas movies with loved ones, and I most especially love cooking Christmas treats.

Christmas, for me, is a time for tradition and comfort, I like watching the same films and wearing the same dodgy jumpers. I also like eating the same things! Having said that, I am always on the lookout for things to add to my festivities: Four years ago I saw It’s a Wonderful Life for the first time, and now it is an unmissable part of the season for me. Three years ago, my boyfriend and I traipsed to IKEA in Christmas jumpers and got meatballs and a whole bunch of Julmust, and now we do it every year. Even just last year was the first time I’d made ham in coke, and now it has been added to my festive menu!

I’ve never had that “perfect” recipe for gingerbread.. Until now. And wouldn’t you know it, Mary bloody Berry strikes again! I was initially sceptical about the recipe, I’ve never added syrup to a biscuit recipe, but damn it was good.

I’ve made a few adjustments to the spicing, just to amp it up a notch. Her recipe also was for larger gingerbread people, wheras I’ve gone with a mix of teeny Christmas shapes and the larger people. The small Christmas shapes were a present from my mum and are my new exact favourite thing.

To me, the smaller ones are very similar to Swedish “pepparkakor” in that they are dark, crisp and spiced. The larger ones are that gorgeous, chewy gingerbread cookie that is just delectable.
makes LOADS. I got about 10 big gingerbread people and approx 60 smaller ones.

Ingredients for the biscuits

350g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
2 tsp ground ginger
½ tsp cinnamon
½ tsp mixed spice
100g butter, diced
Zest of a small orange
100g caster sugar
50g light muscovado sugar
1 egg
60ml golden syrup

Ingredients for the icing

1 egg white
200g icing sugar
Various decorations eg silver balls, optional

Method

Preheat the oven to 190 degrees.

Mix together the flour, baking powder and spices in a large bowl.

Add in the butter and rub in with your fingers until you get a fine crumb texture.

Stir through the sugar and zest.

Finally, mix in the egg and syrup, bringing it all together at the end with your hands.

You should have a fairly stiff biscuit dough at this stage.

Take a third and roll it out with a little flour.

Using whichever cutters you have, press into the dough to cut out your biscuits. I went with mini Christmas ones (Bells! Snowmen! Trees!) and the more traditional gingerbread folk.

I refused to waste a mouthful of this delicious dough. That was the veeeery last cookie I could get out of it,

Place on a lined baking tray, keeping a slight distance in between to account for them getting bigger when baked.

Bake for 8-12 minutes, depending on size.

Let cool for a few minutes, then transfer to a cooling rack. The little ones only take a few minutes to get totally cooled.

When all the biscuits are baked, you can get a start on the piped icing. You can, of course, use writing icing from the shop, but I didn’t have any. Plus, I wanted to go crisp and white.

This is ridiculously easy to make too. Egg white in a bowl. Throw in some icing sugar and mix with a handheld mixer for about 3-4 minutes until stiff enough to hold a peak.