Written by Annalisa

* 125g soft brown sugar
* 125g black treacle
* 1 tsp ground cinnamon
* 1 tsp ground ginger
* 90g butter
* One and a half tsp baking powder
* 500g plain flour
* pinch salt
* 1 egg, lightly beaten
* Anything you want to ice/decorate with; I don’t

You need baking sheets lined with parchment paper, a gingerbread man cutter (or woman, naturally), and a skewer.

Preheat the oven to 170C/325F/GM 3

Dissolve the sugar, treacle, spices and butter in a pan over a low heat, then slowly bring to the boil and remove from heat. Cool to room temperature, then mix in the baking powder.

Place the flour in a bowl, with the salt, make a well in the middle and poor in the cooled syrupy mixture, then the egg and stir from the centre, incorporating the flour until it’s a dough, you will need to knead gently to bring it all together. Flatten it into a disc shape, wrap in a plastic bag or greaseproof paper and rest in the fridge for 30 minutes or until needed (it will keep for a day or so if you make it in advance but you will need to take it out to warm up slightly if you leave it in the fridge for more than a few hours, before you can roll it out).

Roll out the dough to thickness required: thicker will make the biscuits chewier, thinner more crunchy. Cut out shapes. I use a skewer to make holes for eyes and a few buttons. Make a hole in the man’s fore-head if you plan to put ribbon through to hang as a decoration. If you want you can use choc drops/raisins for features, put on now.

Lay on parchment paper, on the baking sheets. They don’t rise much so you can put them quite close but not touching. Bake for 8-10 minutes; it can be hard to see when they’re done as they’re dark anyway but they shouldn’t be very coloured round the edges. Take out and cool on wire rack. You can ice later if you want (to put on features etc) but I don’t.