Gingerbread Men

Gingerbread Men
Adapted from The Perfect Christmas
Prep time: 10 mins | Bake time 10-12 mins | Yield 30-35 cookies

Ingredients:

• 350 grams / 12 oz plain flour plus extra for dusting
• 1 tablespoon ginger powder
• 1 teaspoon soda bi carb (baking soda)
• 100 grams / 3-1/2 oz butter at room temperature
• 175 grams/6 oz soft brown sugar
• 1 egg, beaten
• 4 tablespoon golden syrup * see note#1
• pinch of salt

To decorate:

• 115 grams/ 4 oz icing sugar
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice

Method:
1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C/350F. Depending on the size of your cookie cutters you may need 2-3 baking sheets. Grease them or line with baking parchment.
2. Sift the flour, baking soda, pinch of salt and ginger a couple of times into bowl. Add the butter and rub into the flour until the mixture resembles sand. Stir in the brown sugar.
3. In a bowl beat the egg lightly and add the golden syrup to it and mix. Pour this mixture into the flour mixture and gently knead into a ball. *see note#2
4. On a lightly floured and clean working surface roll out the dough into 1/4 inch thickness and punch out ginger bread man shapes. Use a spatula to transfer the shapes onto the prepared baking sheets and bake for about 10-12 minutes or till the cookies turn golden brown. Remove from the oven and gently transfer onto a cooling rack until completely cooled.
5. Prepare the icing by mixing the icing sugar with the lemon juice until thick & paste like. The icing should not be too runny as it will spread out on the cookie. Neither should it be too thick or dry as it will fall off the cookie without setting. Dust a little extra icing sugar or sprinkle extra drops of lemon juice until the right consistency is achieved. Transfer into a piping bag with a desired nozzle.
6. Once the cookies have been completely cooled decorate as desired and transfer back on the rack for a few hours until the icing has set & hardened. Store in an airtight container.

Notes
1. I substituted golden syrup with corn syrup which worked fine in my opinion. While I searched for substitutes on the net I found suggestions to substitute golden syrup with melted jaggery syrup. I have not tried this but I guess you could try melting regular jaggery (not palm jaggery which is black and available in disc form) on slow fire and add a few drops of water to achieve a thick syrup like consistency.
2. While kneading the dough you may feel that the mixture is extremely dry and crumbly and that the moisture is very less however do not add any extra liquid like water or butter or milk as you will end up with a mess. The dough requires kneading for at least 5-7 minutes during which you will get a nice smooth round ball of dough with a clay like texture