Spicy Gingerbread

Hello again...long time no blog...it feels like every blog I write these days begins with an apology for my absence, but sorry I haven't posted anything since January, but unfortunately I haven't had much time to do much baking in the last year, however recently I've been experimenting with gingerbread recipes and thought i'd squeeze a few Christmas baking blogs in before the year is out! I decided to bake some gingerbread as I've been watching cheesy TV Christmas movies and that inspired me to do some Christmas baking, then it dawned on me, that to my recollection I have never baked gingerbread, so thought I should experiment. Also the photo's for this blog were shot entirely on 35mm colour film that expired over 10 years ago, I have got into recently got into film photography so I thought why not combine my passion for baking with my passion for film photography, hence why the photo's were shot on a SLR from 1979. Hope you enjoy the recipe!!

Ingredients

125g Unsalted Butter

2 Tbsp Golden Syrup

1 Tbsp Black Treacle

100g Demerera Sugar 

300g Plain Flour

1/2 Tsp Bicarbonate of Soda

1 Tsp Ground Nutmeg

2 Tsp  Ground Cinnamon

5 Tsp Ground Ginger

100g Icing Sugar

Method

1.  Combine the butter, golden syrup, black treacle and sugar in a saucepan over a medium heat, continue to stir until one uniform mixture.
2. Sift together all the dry ingredients.
3. Now pour the wet ingredients on the dry ingredients and stir until a dough is formed. Be mindful not to over work the dough as this will create tough gingerbread.
4. Now roll out the dough between two pieces of grease-proof paper until about 7mm thick (you may find it easier to cut the dough in half and roll it out separately if you are short on space) and use your favorite cutters to cut your biscuit shapes, I used a gingerbread man cutter but I have made gingerbread Christmas trees as well and they work fine, so use what ever cutter you wish to use.
5. Place your gingerbread on a baking tray lined in grease-proof paper leaving a small space between each biscuit and then bake for 6-10 minutes depending on the size of your biscuits, less cooking time for smaller ones and more cooking time for bigger ones.
6. While your biscuits are cooling make the icing by adding 2-3 tbsp of water to the sifted icing and stir, then put into a piping bag fitted with a small plain nozzle and then pipe whatever designs you want. I like to decorate each of mine slightly differently so each one is unique but you can do whatever you like. Leave the icing to set and then they are ready to eat!!

Enjoy!!