Gingerbread biscuits
Crisp, warmly spiced biscuits made with golden syrup and ground ginger, cut into shapes and finished with simple white icing.
Method
- 1
Mix the flour, bicarbonate of soda, ginger and cinnamon in a large bowl.
- 2
Rub in the butter with your fingertips until the mix looks like fine breadcrumbs, then stir in the brown sugar.
- 3
Beat the egg with the golden syrup, pour it into the bowl and mix to a dough.
- 4
Knead briefly until smooth, then flatten into a disc, wrap and chill until firm.
- 5
Heat the oven to 180°C and line two baking trays with baking paper.
- 6
Roll the dough out on a lightly floured surface to about 5 mm thick.
- 7
Cut out shapes and lift them onto the trays, leaving a little space between them. Reroll the trimmings once.
- 8
Bake one tray at a time until golden and slightly darker at the edges.
- 9
Bake the second tray in the same way.
- 10
Leave the biscuits on the trays to firm up, then move them to a wire rack to cool completely.
- 11
Stir the icing sugar with just enough water to make a thick paste that holds its shape.
- 12
Pipe faces, buttons or outlines onto the cold biscuits and leave the icing to set.
Notes
- The biscuits are soft when they come out and crisp up as they cool, so do not wait for them to harden in the oven.
- For a darker, stronger flavour, replace 1 tablespoon of the golden syrup with black treacle.
- Un-iced biscuits keep for a week in an airtight tin.
Equipment
Two baking trays, Baking paper, Large mixing bowl, Rolling pin, Biscuit cutters, Wire rack, Small piping bag