One of the best and most exciting thing about the Christmas season for us is the day when we finally get to bake our own gingerbread cookies. It varies depending on our workload… sometimes we begin in mid-November or if we’re rushed off our feet the scent of spiced cookies doesn’t make it’s way through the halls until mid-December. This year we’re insanely busy, but to fit in our biscuit baking marathon around work we decided to offer up our classic go-to gingerbread cookies recipe! Check out our recipe below for some seriously amazing festive sweets!
Our classic gingerbread cookie recipe!
Ingredients needed…
- 215g light brown sugar
- 3 tablespoons treacle
- 3 tablespoons golden syrup
- 2 tablespoons allspice
- 2 tablespoons ground ginger
- 2 tablespoons ground cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
- 250g chilled salted butter - diced
- 560g plain flour (plus extra for dusting)
- 5 tablespoons room temperature water
01: In a saucepan on medium heat add the light brown sugar, treacle, golden syrup, all of your spices (allspice, ginger, cinnamon and nutmeg) with the 5 tablespoons of water. Gently stir until well incorporated.
02: Now lower the heat a little and piece by piece add in the butter and stir until melted. Melting the butter down can take a little bit of patience at this stage.
03: Add in the teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda. Be aware that your mix may expand or froth a little bit at this point. It’s OK if it doesn’t though. Remove from the heat.
Get ready for Christmas!
04: Now you can pour your syrup-like mixture into the bowl of a stand up mixer once it has cooled down to around room temperature.
05: After pouring in your spice/syrup mix add in your plain flour and mix on a slow speed until a slightly sticky dough forms! Place in your fridge to chill for 2 hours at least.
06: Roll out your dough (around 5-6mm is a good thickness) onto a floured surface and cut out all your cookie shapes then place onto a lined cookie tray. Place back into the fridge for 3o minutes to chill and firm them up. This helps stop your cookies from spreading!
Tip!
Don’t worry if your dough is stiff and hard to roll out. If this happens just leave it for around 5 minutes at room temperature then knead it a little to make it workable.
If you want your cookies to have indented details in them (like our cute gingerbread biscuits) then do this now. For our gingerbread faces all we used was a small ball tool for the eyes and buttons and a scallop tool for the smiles.
Christmas cookie recipe!
Tip!
Don’t use greaseproof or parchment paper to line your tray as the heat tends to make the paper crinkle which will lead to wonky cookies! We use Silpat mats (make sure they fit your trays) to bake up all our cookies!
07: Pre-heat your oven to 200 degrees C / 400 degrees F / Gas mark 6 and bake for around 8-10 minutes.
Tip!
Here’s a super handy tip that we use every time to check if our cookies are done… gently poke / indent one of your cookies with a finger. If the dough rises back up and the indentation disappears then they’re ready. If not then try baking them for another 2 minutes before testing again.
08: Once removed from the oven set them aside to cool down before you decorate them (if you’re going to anyway).
Now you can enjoy your homemade gingerbread cookies… or get them ready for friends and family! To decorate each you can dip them in dark chocolate. Then royal ice them, add candy details or even use fondant to decorate. We love the idea of whipping up gingerbread cookies, covering them with chocolate and using crushed candy canes to decorate.
