Gingerbread Yum!

For me, a favourite childhood Christmas treat was freshly baked gingerbread. The smell coming straight from the oven brings me right back, including burning fingers from not allowing it to cool properly and getting told off!

This is a great interactive treat for the family and gets the kids involved in cooking. Don’t forget to provide plenty of icing to dress the cookies because that’s half the fun.

Ginger Bread

300g plain flour

140g butter

2 tsp ground ginger

1 tsp ground cinnamon

½ tsp ground mace

½ tsp salt

1 tsp bicarbonate soda

1 large egg

150g soft brown sugar

3 tbsp golden syrup

Tubes of various coloured icing to decorate (optional)

Method

• Whisk together the egg, golden syrup and brown sugar until incorporated.
• In a food processor, finely sift the flour. Add cinnamon, ginger, salt, mace and bicarbonate soda, then lightly pulse together and add the butter until it resembles fine breadcrumbs.
• Combine together the flour and egg mixture to form a dough, then tip out and knead for 2 minutes. Wrap in cling film and leave to chill in fridge for 15 minutes.
• Remove from cling film and roll out on a lightly floured table to roughly ¼ – ½ inch thick sheet.
• Cut out shapes and place on baking trays. Bake in a pre-heated oven at 170C for 15-18 minutes depending on thickness.
• Take out and allow to cool before decorating.

Chefs Tip

Leftover gingerbread?

• Freeze it and bash it in to a vanilla ice cream with chocolate sauce – yum…
• At the castle, we hang the leftovers on the Christmas tree – the smell is amazing!

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