Ultimate easy gingerbread recipe | Good Food

Easy gingerbread cut into star shapes

Method

step 1
Heat the butter, syrup and sugar together in a small pan until melted, stirring occasionally. Set aside to cool slightly.
step 2
Mix together the bicarb, ginger, cinnamon and flour in a large bowl. Pour in the buttery syrup mixture and stir to combine, then use your hands to bring together to form a dough. Add up to 1 tbsp of milk to combine if needed. The dough will be soft at this point, but it’ll firm up in the fridge.
step 3
Put the dough on a sheet of baking parchment, shape into a rectangle, and lay another sheet of parchment on top of it. Roll the dough out to a thickness of ½cm. Transfer to a baking sheet to keep it flat, leaving the parchment in place, then chill in the fridge for 1 hr.
step 4
Heat the oven to 190C/170C fan/gas 5 and line a large baking sheet with more baking parchment. Remove the dough from the fridge and cut out shapes using a cookie cutter. We used 9cm stars, but you can choose any shape. We also made some with smaller stars cut out of the centre to thread ribbon through and hang from a Christmas tree.
step 5
Place the shapes, spread apart, on the lined baking sheet, and bake for 10-12 mins. (Depending on the size of the cutters you use, they might need a few minutes more or less cooking in the oven). Leave to cool completely on the baking sheet.
step 6
Meanwhile, mix the icing sugar with 1-2 tbsp water – you want to create a consistency that’s thick and pipeable, and not too thin or it will run. Decorate the cooled biscuits with the icing using a piping bag with a thin nozzle. Find out how to make a piping bag.

Recipe tips:

Twists on our ultimate gingerbread

Gingerbread ice cream sandwich
Use 9cm round cutters instead. Once cooked and cooled, dust them in gold lustre. Put a spoonful of salted caramel or even peanut butter ice cream in the middle and sandwich them together.

Gluten-free gingerbread
Simply swap the plain flour for gluten-free plain flour and follow the same method.

Cutting and shaping gingerbread

You need to cut your gingerbread shapes when they're raw, but sometimes they spread or get misshapen when cooking. If this happens, trim your pieces back to their shapes while the gingerbread is still warm.

You can even make gingerbread Christmas decorations by pushing a straw through each biscuit shortly after they’ve come out the oven to make a hole for the ribbon.

Using up leftover dough

Leftover dough can be frozen until you need it. Bake any off-cuts, then dip them in dark chocolate and serve as mini biscuits with coffee or use them to decorate a cake.

Storage

Store biscuits in an airtight container. Gingerbread houses will have to stay on display, so make sure you keep them somewhere dry – not near a steaming kettle, for example.

Decorating gingerbread

Make only as much icing as you intend to use that day. For houses, you’ll need one batch to stick the house together, and a second batch the following day to decorate and use to stick on sweets, nuts or chocolates.

For gingerbread people, you’ll probably only need one batch. Use a good-quality gel colouring for strong colours that won’t fade or dilute your icing too much – you can buy tube of gel in most large supermarkets. If you want to make flat, coloured surfaces on your biscuits, follow our video on how to flood icing.

Some icings use raw egg to make sure they set very hard. If you prefer not to use raw eggs, look for pasteurised egg white, which is available in cartons in most large supermarkets in their chilled isles. Alternatively, powdered egg white or boxes of royal icing mix containing powered egg white can be found in most large supermarkets.

Building houses

To hold the roof pieces together while they dry, try propping the pieces up from underneath using food cans. See our recipe for how to make a gingerbread house.

Add some light

Put an electric tea light inside the house instead of a candle, as it will glow all evening without scorching the gingerbread or melting any decorations.