Gingerbread Recipe

350 grams plain flour
1 teaspoon bicarbonate soda (or baking powder)
2 teaspoons ground ginger
100 grams unsalted butter
175 grams brown sugar
1 egg
3 tablespoons golden syrup

Preheat oven to 170 degrees.

Line baking trays with baking paper.

Sift flour, bicarb and ginger into a large bowl.
Rub in butter until mixture resembles breadcrumbs then rub in the sugar.

Beat egg and syrup together and stir into flour mixture, mixing lightly to form a smooth dough. Rest in the refridgerator for 30 minutes. On a floured surface rollout dough to 4-5mm thickness.

Cut into shapes and transfer to baking tins.

Bake for 12-15 mins or until golden brown.
Remove from the oven and leave to cool slightly on trays.

Transfer to wire racks to cool completely then ice.

Icing
200 grams of icing sugar
1 egg white
1 tablespoon lemon juice.

Beat the egg white until soft peaks form and gradually beat in the icing sugar followed by the lemon juice. Ice the biscuits and decorate with silver/coloured cashous for buttons.

Hints: It is easier to roll out the dough on the silicone baking paper that you line the tins with. So remove the paper from the baking tins, roll out the dough, cut out the desired shapes, take away excess dough and then put the baking paper back into the baking trays. That way you don't accidentally break any of the arms etc.

As you can see I decided to use the snowman shape and the stars. The snowman makes a large biscuit enough really for two people to share. I think I averaged about 30 stars and 8-10 snowman per batch.

With the stars, I found because they are so small they baked really quickly maybe five minutes, though I really just kept a close eye on them. The larger biscuits took about 10 minutes really.

I have been keeping the finished product in an airtight container and plan to make another batch tonight and then I should have sufficient for my plans ... to conquer the world with my gingerbread snowmen who come to life at the stroke of midnight.....(evil laugh - ha.ha.ha.ha.ha.)

Acutally, I am on to my third batch tonight and I think it will be enough for my gift purposes :D

I thought I would provide some links to converters for anyone who needs them:
grams to ounces
Celsius to Fahrenheit