here's one I've used. I've just copied it from my blog, so it might read weird!
also, I didn't make the coloured hard icing stuff ...

enjoy!!




Ingredients:
· 125g butter
· 1/2 cup brown sugar (pushed right down into the cup)
· 1/2 cup golden syrup (warning: uber sticky!!)
· 1 egg yolk
· 2 1/2 cups plain flour
· 1 tbs ground ginger
· 1 tsp mixed spice
· 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

There were also recipes for icing (plain and coloured) but I didn’t want to ice them. I just wanted to bake them and eat them.

I have recently been given some cookie cutters, so I was going to have some gingerbread planes, some gingerbread feet, and some gingerbread Australias (minus Tasmania).

To actually make the gingerbread thingies, I heated the oven to 180oC, and popped some baking paper on the trays.

I then mixed the butter (slightly softened) and the sugar together, until it was nice and creamy (see? see how creamy??).

Needless to say, this recipe involves taste tests at very regular intervals, to ensure the ongoing integrity of the end product. Yum!

Next, I mixed in the yolk and the golden syrup, and used the mixer for a while longer, until it was nice and creamy again. Once that was done, I used a spoon to combine the dry ingredients in too - the flour, ginger, mixed spice and bicarbonate of soda. This is what it looked like then!

I then transferred it all out onto a chopping board (though a mat or a lightly floured surface would be fine) and gently kneaded the dough. It should be nice and smooth, and look a little greasy when it’s all worked through.

Next, pop the dough either in a freezer bag or in some clingwrap, and put it in the fridge for half an hour to rest.

I then put the dough between two pieces of baking paper, and then spread it out until it was the right thickness (about half a centimetre) and then I started using the cookie cutters to make shapes.

This wasn’t a very successful part of the process ... they didn’t hold their shape well, and broke and looked very sad ... maybe leaving it in the fridge longer would have solved this, or maybe there’s a fancy technique I’m unaware of ... but as I just wanted to eat the gingerbread by this stage, I decided to just make normal cookie things, by tearing off sections of the dough, and working it roughly into cookie shapes.

You’re supposed to leave a reasonable gap between your cookies (3cms or so) but I was running out of room ...

I then baked the cookies for 10 minutes, and then whipped them out. This is how they looked! Definitely should have spread them out a bit more, but no matter ... Also, I normally would bake them a bit longer to get them darker and crisper - but I was happy with some nice soft ones this time!

I then put them onto cooling rack.

I’m glad I didn’t bother icing them or anything – they were so tasty, I just wanted to eat them all up! As it is, we’re probably about half way through them ...