Gingerbread People

As part of our weekly cookie baking my oldest son and I made gingerbread people before Christmas. We looked at a number of different recipes before creating our own based on our research. We wanted to make a traditional softer gingerbread person rather than a crispy ginger snap type biscuit.

Our decorations were quite simple – just some melted chocolate (as a glue) and smarties (or M&M’s) as buttons.  Obviously you can go as crazy as you want with decorations for yours.

We have stainless steel people shaped cutters that we used but you can use any shape you like. I recommend stainless steel over plastic as they make a cleaner cut which helps the cookie to rise better.

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Gingerbread People

Prep Time 40 minutes

Cook Time 10 minutes

Servings 28 cookies

Ingredients

• 125 g butter
• 125 g soft brown sugar
• 1 egg beaten
• 3 tbsp golden syrup
• 1 tsp bread soda
• 350 g plain flour
• 2 tsp ground ginger
• 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 30 g chocolate drops
• 56 smarties

Instructions

• Preheat oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas 4
• Cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.
• Add the golden syrup and beaten egg and mix well
  
• Sieve in the flour, baking soda, ground cinnamon and ground ginger and mix using a wooden spoon until well combined
  
• Shape into a ball and knead lightly on a work surface until smooth. Wrap and chill in the fridge for about 30 minutes before using.
• Roll out dough to about 4mm thickness and use cutters to cut out shapes. Place on lightly greased baking sheets, leaving a space between each.
• Bake for about 10 minutes until the cookies are slightly risen and golden in colour.
  
• Once the cookies have cooled you can decorate. Melt 30g chocolate and put two drops on each cookie. Use this as a glue to stick the smarties on top. Two per person should be enough.