Gingey!!

I decided this year to make some festive treats for friends and indulge myself in some baking experimentation at the same time.
I had never made ginger bread before, and to be honest it was quite easy and fun! Although I reckon if I hadn't doubled the mixture it would have been easier...we made about 60 ginger bread men/ladies!
The recipe was from The Hummingbird Bakery cookbook which produced quite nice spicy and kind of salty biscuits.


We had the most fun decorating them, drawing inspiration on films and popular culture...Lady Gaga ginger bread lady or Zombie/Dracula ginger bread man anyone?!


Ginger bread Biscuits
(from The Hummingbird bakery)


Ingredients
(for a standard batch)


400g plain flour
3/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda
2 tsp ground ginger
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground allspice
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp salt
180g unsalted butter, at room temperature
125g soft dark brown sugar
1 egg
125g black treacle


Method


1. Sift together the flour, bicarbonate of soda, ginger, cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg and salt in a large bowl and set aside. 
2. Put the butter and sugars in a freestanding electric mixer with a paddle attachment (or use a handheld electric whisk) and cream on slow speed until light and fluffy. Turn the mixer up to medium speed and beat in the egg and treacle, scraping any unmixed ingredients from the side of the bowl with a rubber spatula.
3. Turn the mixer back down to slow speed and slowly add the flour mixture a couple of tablespoons at a time, stopping often to scrape any unmixed ingredients from the side of the bowl with a rubber spatula. Once an even dough has formed, take it out of the mixer, divide into 3 and wrap each piece in cling-film.
Leave to rest overnight in the fridge. ( I know this is tortuous because the mixture smells so good! But believe me its worth it).
4. Preheat the oven to 170°C (325°F) Gas 3. Take the dough out of the fridge and leave to soften for about 10 minutes. Lightly dust a clean work surface with flour and roll out the dough to a thickness of about 4 mm with a rolling pin. Cut out shapes with the biscuit cutters. Arrange the cookies on the prepared baking trays and bake in the preheated oven for about 10–15 minutes.
5. Leave the cookies to cool slightly on the trays before turning out onto a wire cooling rack to cool completely.


We then used icing pens to decorate our cookies, but you could use a royal icing mixture as the original recipe does (I'll post it some time when I use it), or a really simple icing like lemon sugar icing (we made some sugar cookies and iced them with it, so I'll post them soon too!).