This is the fantastic Waitrose recipe, with the amount of ginger revved up a little.  In my book this is an unbeatable recipe as it creates crunchy, yet chewy Gingerbread men.  It has a high snaffle factor too!

125g unsalted butter
100g dark muscovado sugar
4 tbsp golden syrup
325g plain flour
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
6 tsp ground ginger

Grease a couple of baking trays or line with parchment. Melt butter, sugar and syrup in a medium saucepan, stirring occasionally, then remove from the heat.

Put the dry ingredients in a bowl, and mix in the saucepan contents.  Mix well to form a stiff dough.  Cover with clingfilm and refridgerate for an hour or more.  It will keep well for a couple of days like this.

When you are ready to bake, preheat oven to 170°C and take the dough out of the fridge.   Work it a bit to warm it up.  Roll out and cut into shapes.  The more you work the dough, the better it is, so it’s a great activity to do with children.

Place the shapes onto the lined baking trays and bake, in batches, for 9-10 minutes until light golden brown.  Cool before icing.  They’ll keep for 2 weeks in an airtight tin.

To make an excellent icing, mix 1 tsp lemon juice with a cup of icing sugar.  It should be fairly thick, but glossy and not stiff.  If too stiff add a little more lemon juice.  I give the kids a chop stick and they dip that in the icing, then trail  it on the biscuits, decorating with dried raisins, cranberries and cherries.