Decorating your own gingerbread men is all good fun, but if you have the time, why not take your creativity one step

further this year and make the dough from scratch! Easy, fun, additive-free and… ehm, yes, tastier… just make sure it

doesn’t find itself in hungry mouths before it reaches the oven tray.

Ingredients:

200g butter

220g granulated sugar

100ml golden syrup

2tsp ground cinnamon

1tsp ground cloves

2rsp ground ginger

2tsp bicarbonate of soda

50ml water

1 egg

400-500g flour

What you need:

Rolling pin

Cookie cutters

Baking sheets and trays

Icing sugar to decorate – optional

What to Do:

Day 1:

1. In a saucepan, put together butter, sugar, syrup and spices and let it slowly melt together, stirring until the

butter has completely dissolved.

2. Let it cool down. Dissolve the bicarbonate of soda in the water and add to the saucepan mix. Stir in the egg and

add the flour little by little until you have a thick mix.

3. Cover with aluminium foil and place in the fridge over night.

Day 2:

1. Heat the oven to 175°C.

2. Using a rolling pin, roll out the dough (not all at once) on a flour-dusted surface until it’s a few millimetres thin.

If the dough is too sticky, add more flour.

3. Use cookie cutters to cut out whichever shapes you want and place on oven baking trays (some will be eaten

before reaching the tray though!)

Tips: try to stick to similar sized shapes on the same baking tray, otherwise the smaller tend to get burnt.

5. Bake in the oven for 6-8 minutes whilst you continue the next batch, and so on, until you have used all of the dough

(if the kids can stay patient that long…)

6. When cookies are out of the oven let them cool on the tray. Decorating with icing sugar is optional but prettier.