These make brilliant Christmas Presents!
Makes 20-24
Easily doubled
Prep 15 mins Cook 12 mins
Ingredients
75g softened butter
50g caster sugar ½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
50g golden syrup 2 egg yolks
250g plain flour ½ tsp ground cinnamon ½ tsp ground ginger
Heat oven to 180C/fan 160C/gas 4.
Beat together the softened butter with the caster sugar until creamy. Stir in bicarbonate of soda, golden syrup and the egg yolks. Sift in the plain flour and ground cinnamon and ground ginger then bring together with a wooden spoon. Shape into two balls, knead until the dough comes together, then place in the fridge for half an hour. Roll out each ball to about 1 cm. You can then either cut out using pre-shaped cutters, or use a blunt knife to make any shape you like. Whenever you do this re-roll the trimmings to make more. Place your shapes onto greased baking sheets and bake for 10-12 mins until slightly risen and golden brown. Cool on a wire rack.
Decorate by sprinkling some icing sugar on top. Using a sieve will make this easier.
You can make a runny icing and to make lines, patterns and stick decorations on the cookies too!The ingredients are:
2 1/2 cups icing sugar
2 tablespoons water
1 tablespoon butter, softened
1 tablespoon agave or maple syrup
1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence
Simply mix all the ingredients in a bowl. Continue beating the mixture until smooth, adding more water if needed. You want it to drizzle from a spoon at an easy pace. When this is done use it in two ways. Dip the spoon and dangle above the biscuits moving your hand in all different directions. As it drizzles off, it makes patterns (and is really fun!). You can also use it just like a glue and stick on raisins, chocolate buttons, sprinkles and silver balls.
Preparation: Oven preheated to 200˚C/Gas Mark 6, 2 baking trays lined with grease proof paper.
Separate your ingredients into wet and dry. Fresh ginger and barley cup are to be included in the wet mixture. Simply mix all of your dry ingredients and then all of your wet ingredients, and then combine the two.
Continue to mix until satisfied and form a ball from the dough. Place grease proof paper down, sprinkle lightly with flour and place the dough ball upon it. Then place another sheet on top and use a rolling pin to flatten out the dough to about a 1/4 inch high.
Cut out shapes either using your shaped cutters or a blunt/butter knife to create your own shapes, then place onto the prepared trays. If you wish to hang these on the tree, poke a hole at the top, big enough to fit a small piece of ribbon. Then pop into the oven and bake for 10 to 12 minutes. Decorate as before!
