Gingerbread Thins

This mixture makes thin, crispy, melt in the mouth gingerbread cookies. The dough is soft enough to roll out thinly, but holds its shape well when baking so have fun with festive cookie cutters.

This is not a dough that is good for construction so it will not make you a sturdy gingerbread house, but it is very delicious and makes my favourite texture of biscuit.

The best thing about these biscuits is that they are by far the quickest to make. You can churn out lots of batches of these in a short space of time since the cook time is only a matter of minutes. The recipe below will easily make at least 50 biscuits, but I like to have a mish-mash of different shapes and sizes so I cannot give a specific amount. Store these in an airtight container and I imagine they will keep for 5-7 days, but to be honest they are usually gone within 3 days so I have never been able to test the theory.

THINGS YOU WILL NEED

Saucepan

Mixing Bowl

Wooden Spoon

Rolling Pin

Baking sheets/ Greaseproof paper

Cookie Cutters

Skewer

INGREDIENTS

250g plain flour

5g Festive Spice Blend

15g Ground Ginger

100g Butter

85g Golden Syrup

30g Treacle

50g Brown Sugar

Big pinch of salt

1/4 tsp Bicarbonate of Soda

1/2 tsp Baking Powder

1) In a mixing bowl, combine the flour, salt, bicarbonate of soda and spices. Whisk the dry ingredients to combine them evenly and make sure it is free of lumps.

2) In a small saucepan, melt the butter, syrup, treacle and sugar together until the sugar is completely dissolved and the mixture combines into a silky caramel. Allow it to cool slightly.

3) Pour the liquid over the dry ingredients and combine with a wooden spoon until a soft dough is formed.

4) Leave the dough to cool in the fridge for a few hours to firm up.

5) Take a handful of dough and knead it gently to soften it enough to roll. Roll the dough onto a baking sheet or greaseproof paper because they will be too thin for you to move the cookies after you have shaped them. Lay a piece of cling film over the dough and roll it to around 1-2mm thick. Use cookie cutters to make fun, festive shapes and then gently peel away the remaining dough. This can be quite fiddly, so I use a skewer to help.

This dough does not spread when baking, so you do not need to leave too much space between them. They will be fine as long as they do not touch.

6) Put the baking sheet into the freezer for 5 minutes to firm up. This will make sure your edges stay sharp.

7) Bake the cookies for between 5 - 8 minutes at Gas Mark 4,180 degrees. Small biscuits can catch at the edges very quickly, so keep a close eye on them. They will be soft when they come out of the oven, so let them cool on the baking sheet before moving them.

7) If you want, you can decorate them with icing or melted chocolate. Otherwise, just enjoy with a cup of tea.