Christmas Gingerbread Cookies

Happy new year everyone!

So I was really hoping to post this before Christmas because I actually baked these cute little gingerbread men (and some other stuff) a few days before Christmas eve to get into the festive mood, but for some reason the drive on my laptop to read my camera's memory stick has stopped working, so I had some trouble. But all is set now, so here we go...

So I baked these gingerbread men, recipe courtesy of Zoella- and they were so cute that I had to share them and the recipe with you.

Here's what you'll need:

So, what to do:

1) In a pot on the hob (medium heat) add 75g of light brown sugar, 2 heaped tablespoons of golden syrup (this is often called corn syrup in the U.S I think?), 1 heaped tablespoon of black treacle (molasses), 1 tablespoon of water and stir with a wooden spoon while they melt.

2) After a few minutes stir in the spices: 1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon and 1 teaspoon of ground ginger (you can add more or less depending on how gingery you like them). 

3) To the mixture in the pot, add 95g of butter at room temperature and gradually stir it in, having turned down the heat to low, until it is completely combined and melted in. 

4) Turn off the stove. Add half a teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda (baking soda) and stir till it lightens slightly in colour. 

5) Sift in 225g of cake flour and mix it up until it forms a ball of thick dough, add more or less flour to it so that the dough is neither too sticky nor too dry. Cover the dough lightly in cling wrap plastic and put it aside to cool for 30 mins. While you wait, preheat the oven to 180 degrees celsius (350 F).

6) After the dough has finished resting, sprinkle a surface lightly with flour and roll out the dough thinly with a rolling pin. 

7) Now I just went to town with cutting all the different shapes I liked. Use cookie cutters (I used gingerbread men and dove shapes) to cut out the cookies and keep doing this and then rerolling out the dough till it is all used up. Place your cookie cut-outs on a Silpat or wax paper on top of a baking tray (you could also just grease it with Spray 'n Cook). Cook them for 8-15 minutes, check that they're firm when you take them out, but if you poke too hard, obviously you will squish them. Let them cool completely. 

8) Once they've cooled, you can ice them how you'd like. I used ready-to-roll fondant in christmas colours. Roll the fondant out until it is very thin, and cut out shapes using the same cookie cutters. 

9) Mix half a cup of icing sugar with 3 tablespoons of water to form a thick paste to act as 'glue' (add more icing sugar if it is too watery). Spread this on the back of the fondant and put it face-down onto the cookie so that they fit together. 

And taaah daaaah :D I had so much fun making these and they really are so easy and very festive. Hope you enjoyed this post as much as I did making it.