Gingerbread men

Ginger bread men are something I have never (yes never.. you read that right) ever made in my entire time since discovering a love of baking, but I thought an attempt was well overdue and now I have attempted them I know they will be appearing in my kitchen quite possibly all year round.


I decorated mine simply with an outline of royal icing and added a simple smile, and three dots for buttons. You can go as detailed as you wish, let the kids go all out with colours or go classic and keep them totally plain.

To make about 6-9 gingerbread men you will need:

75g soft light brown sugar
2 tbsp golden syrup
1 tbsp treacle
1 tbsp water
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp  ground ginger
1/4 tsp all spice
95g butter
1/2 tsp soda bicarbonate
235g plain flour

• Place the butter, both syrups, sugar, soda bicarb and water into a saucepan and melt on a low heat, stirring together to ensure the mixture doesn't stick or start to burn. Once melted remove from the heat and leave to cool 
• In a bowl, add the flour and all the spices and stir together. Slowly add the cooled syrup mixture and stir together with a wooden spoon. Once all the syrup mixture has been added, use your hands to bring the dough together and ensure there are no bits of flour that haven't been mixed in properly
• Leave the dough to completely cool, trying to roll it out and handle it will be difficult whilst it is warm and it will just tear. I left mine for about 25- 30 minutes, alternatively you can place the the dough in the fridge to cool it quicker, for about 15 minutes. Ensure you wrap it in cling film if you're placing it in the fridge.
• Once the dough is cool enough to handle, flour your work top and rolling pin as this is a dough that will easily stick and you want to try and handle it as less as possible so that you're not over working the dough.
• Roll your dough out to 3-4mm thick if you want biscuits that are thin and snappy or for softer and thicker gingerbread roll out to 4-6mm thick. Use gingerbread cookie cutters to cut out your gingerbread men, or whatever shapes you fancy.
• Bake them on a greaseproof lined tray, in a preheated oven at 160c (fan) for 10-12 minutes or until the edges just slightly colour.
• Leave to slightly cool once removed from the oven, then place onto a wire rack to completely cool before decorating as desired