My daughter’s best ever gingerbread recipe.

This recipe seems to be able to handle any cock-up I throw at it. It is apparently possible that any mistake you can conceivably make will still render these biscuits surprisingly delicious. You could probably substitute snail poison for ginger and it’d be totally fine.

I have included every possible variation I can remember making. You’ll see, ALL STEPS ARE ARBITRARY AND SUPERFLUOUS.

WHAT YOU NEED:
# 125g butter, at room temperature (we don’t usually have butter so I’ve often used something called “olive oil spread” which sounds hilarious and works equally well.)
# 100g (1/2 cup, firmly packed) brown sugar (once I didn’t have enough of this and it seemed to work with raw sugar mixed in too)
# 125ml (1/2 cup) golden syrup (The first time I ran out so I used 1/4 cup golden syrup and 1/4cup of honey. And then one time I had nothing runny at all and put in more sugar and that seemed to work)
# 1 egg, separated
# 375g (2 1/2 cups) plain flour
# 1 tbs ground ginger
# 1 tsp mixed spice (I didn’t have any of this so-called “mixed spice” so I used a teaspoon of cinnamon and a teaspoon of ground cloves and a teaspoon of nutmeg and that seemed fine. MOAR SPICES)
# 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

Then for the icing
# 150g (1 cup) pure icing sugar, sifted
# Food coloring
# White from the separated egg

WHAT YOU DO:
1. Preheat oven – 180 degrees, baking paper a couple of trays, etc.
2. “Use an electric beater to beat the butter and sugar in a bowl until pale and creamy. [I don’t believe what counts as ‘pale’ will ever actually match up with an achievable colour. Just…mix for a bit] Add the golden syrup and egg yolk and beat until combined. Stir in the flour, ginger, mixed spice and bicarbonate of soda. Turn onto a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth. [sometimes it ends up too runny, in which case, make the lightly floured surface into an oppressively heavily floured surface, and then…eventually, it becomes less…gross] Press dough into a disc. Cover with plastic wrap and place in the fridge for 30 minutes to rest. [I left it over night one time I made it, and for about 10 minutes the other time because I am forgetful & impatient respectively. It seems this time limit is arbitrary.]
3. Once it’s rested, roll it out between two sheets of baking paper, I suppose to about a centimeter thick. Maybe less. It doesn’t really matter. Cut out pretty shapes, and put them on the tray. Then bake them. It says in the recipe to leave them for 10 minutes, but I left them till the edges JUST started to go brown, and everyone seemed to like them. That was after about 5 minutes. So. Evs.
4. For the icing, beat the egg white like you’re going to make meringue. Once it’s all stiff instead of putting in the icing sugar gradually, I just dumped it all in and mixed it. It seemed to work. Then you divide it up and colour it and such. And then do whatever you like. Pipe it or put sprinkles in it or smarties or whatever. I don’t know. They’re your biscuits.

AND THAT’S IT.

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Image by bluemorphos via Pixabay