Super Easy Gingerbread Men
I LOVE GINGERBREAD!!! My most favourite biscuit everrrrr! And of course it has to be the soft chewy type, none of this rock hard business. And oh em gee is Christmas really 2moro? Haven’t done any Christmas baking just yet? Then this recipe is for you! I’ve modified a gingerbread recipe from the awesome Exclusively Food a tad, making it a one bowl recipe and upping the ginger content because I am crazy about ginger and it just makes the whole house smell incredible. Dear Future Suze, triple the recipe!
Teehee my favourite character in Shrek was Gingy so I colour matched the icing as best I could but anyways who’s ready to start baking?
Ingredients:
2½ cups plain flour
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
2 tsp mixed spice (ground spice mixture of cinnamon, allspice and nutmeg)
4 tsp ground ginger (Dear Future Suze, when tripling the recipe, use whole packet of 25g ginger)
140g salted butter, softened
½ cup brown sugar
½ cup golden syrup or treacle
1 egg yolk (egg white can be reserved for the icing, combine it with 1⅓ cups of icing sugar)
Packet of royal icing mix (I used this because raw egg white creeps me the hell out)
1. Beat the 140g butter and ½ cup of brown sugar together in a large bowl. Stop the machine occasionally and use a spatula to scrape down the side. Beat until the mixture is creamy- about 7mins.
2. Beat in the egg yolk and the ½ cup golden syrup/treacle until mixture is just combined.
3. Sift in the 2½ cups of flour, 1 tsp bicarb soda, 2 tsp mixed spice and 2 tsp ginger and stir with a wooden spoon until combined (or beat on extremely slow speed.)
4. Divide dough in half and roll each lot between sheets of baking paper to 5mm thick.
Use a gingerbread man cutter and stamp away! If the dough is too soft slide the dough onto baking trays and shove into the fridge for 10mins or until the dough firms up and the gingerbread men are easy to remove without losing any limbs. I use a smallish approx 5cm gingerbread cutter. Preheat oven to 150C for a fan forced oven.
Place gingerbread men 2cm apart and bake one tray at a time for 8mins. If you rolled your dough thinner or if you like them a bit more chewier try baking for 6 mins or watch till edges become golden. And obvs bake longer for a crispier cookie.
Cool cooked biscuits on tray before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
MY ARMY! Make sure gingerbread have completely cooled before starting to ice. Make icing either by packet mix of by mixing the egg white with 1⅓ icing sugar and transfer to a piping bag or ziplock bag with the corner snipped off.
Not the gumdrop buttons!
This recipe makes about 20 small gingerbread men but I would highly recommend you double it because you won’t be able to stop at eating just one 😀
Merry Christmas! Hope you guys have a safe and awesome holiday!
