BLOGMAS #16: How to make Gingerbread Men

Hey guys, 

Anyone who knows me knows 2 things: that I don't cook and that I'm not all that good at baking. However I recently made gingerbread men out of spontaneity while hanging out with one of my best friends Jo. The pictures that you see before you are my second, solo baking attempt and although these photos make it hard to describe to you guys what they taste like, I will tell you this - they are completely worth making. Especially if you are in love with gingerbread men and have frequent thoughts about eloping with them. Just kidding, that's weird. I managed to do two baking trays of these and on the third tray that I made... I burnt them. So obviously, I was like well THAT'S not going on my blog and I did try, I really did. So I hope you guys enjoy me walking you guys through the recipe. I had a bit of an icing fail at the end simply because of a lack of icing to pipe, it just wasn't happening. 

First of all I'll tell you guys the ingredients, you will need:

350g/12oz of plain flour

1 teaspoon of bicarbonate soda

2 - 3 teaspoons of ground ginger

1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon

125g/4 1/2oz of butter

175g/6oz of light soft brown sugar

1 egg

4 tablespoons of golden syrup

For decorations:

Icing sugar and 15ml of warm water

or 

Already made icing in a pipe

and decorations: sprinkles, sweets, coloured icing.

To begin with, make sure you wash your hands :) 

1 - First of all you are going to sift the flour into a mixing bowl. Then you are going to add the bicarbonate of soda, ground ginger and ground cinnamon into the bowl. After add the butter and then mix all of the ingredients so far turning the mixture into breadcrumbs with your fingertips. Once you have done this add the brown sugar and then continue to create a breadcrumb texture. 

2 - Now you want to get a cup, crack the egg into it and put 4 tablespoons of syrup into the cup. This is quite a daunting part due to the stickyness so you can use a teaspoon to scrape out the syrup when it gets stuck. Then you'll need to whisk with a spoon the egg and the syrup and then pour the mixture into your main mixing bowl. As you mix, it will start to form a dough-like texture. 

3 - Once you have formed the dough you will need to wrap it up in clingfilm and leave it in your refridgerator for 15 minutes. During this time preheat the oven 180c/350f/Gas 4 also you could set up a chopping board with flour on it ready to roll out your dough. 

4 - When it is ready you can roll out the dough onto the chopping board make sure it has a 0.5cm thickness and cut out your shapes! I mostly did Gingerbread men but there are loads of cutters that you can buy at the shops. Either butter or place baking paper into a baking tray and place your shapes onto it, leave space in between because goodness knows they need it. (Joint gingerbeings are not a good look). 

5 - Bake for 12-15 minutes until they appear a beautiful golden brown, leave them on the tray for 10 minutes and then transfer them to a wire rack. When they've cooled down after giving them space you can go forth and decorate them!

Find out how mine turned out at the bottom of this post :)

Enjoy eating them guys!

God bless,

All my love,