Gingerbread Men

Ingredients-

100g salted butter

3 tbsp maple syrup or rice malt syrup 

100g dark sugar

½ tsp bicarbonate of soda

1/2tbsp ground ginger

1 tsp ground cinnamon

225g plain flour

50g icing sugar

2 -3 tbsp milk 

Method

STEP 1

Heat the butter, maple syrup and sugar together in a small pan until melted, stirring occasionally. Set aside to cool slightly. Once cooled slightly pop it into the bliss blender to mix together well. Take it out and into a bowl set aside. 

STEP 2

Mix together the bicarb, ginger, cinnamon and flour in The blender, Pour in the buttery syrup mixture and stir to combine, then use your hands to bring together to form a dough. The dough will be soft at this point, but it’ll firm up in the fridge.

STEP 3

Put the dough on a sheet of baking parchment, shape into a rectangle, and lay another sheet of parchment on top of it. Roll the dough out to a thickness of about ½cm. 

Next, Transfer to a baking sheet to keep it flat, leaving the parchment in place, then chill in the fridge for about 1 hr.

STEP 4

Heat the oven to 185 degrees and line a large baking sheet with more baking parchment. Remove the dough from the fridge and cut out gingerbread man shapes using a cookie cutter.  We also made some with smaller star cut our shape cookie cutters.

STEP 5

Place the shapes, spread apart, on the lined baking sheet, and bake for 10- 15 minutes (Depending on the size of the cutters you use, they might need a few minutes more or less cooking in the oven). Leave to cool completely on the baking sheet.

STEP 6

Meanwhile, mix the icing sugar with 2-3 tbsp of milk – you want to create a consistency that’s thick and pipeable, and not too thin or it will run. Decorate the cooled biscuits with the icing using a piping bag with a thin nozzle of a glad wrap bag cut one small hole and pipe away.  Add some icing to create eyes then stick on stars for eyes. Then pipe on a face. Let the kids join in it’s a great activity for them. Dust with sugar. Enjoy 😊