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Annabel Karmel's Gingerbread Friends recipe

• Annabel Karmel

Published: November 23, 2023 at 4:14 PM

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Makes 20

Easy

Prep: 25 mins

Cook: 15 mins

plus 30 mins chilling and extra decorating time

A simple, child-friendly recipe for decorated gingerbread biscuits from the UK's bestselling children's food expert. Easy to bake for children aged 3 and up – with a little grown-up help

Easily doubled

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Birthday parties and Christmas spreads wouldn't be complete without the sweet smell of freshly baked gingerbread – and this easy, colourful recipe for gingerbread cookies is specially designed to be easy for kids to bake themselves (with a little grown-up help from time to time).

You will need 2 baking sheets and a gingerbread man cookie cutter. We like these ones from Etersion, which have a raised grip that's perfect for children to hold securely.

Ingredients

• 140g butter, softened
• 80g brown sugar
• 50g golden syrup
• 50g black treacle
• ½ egg, beaten
• 150g plain flour
• 150g self-raising flour
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 2 tsp ground ginger
• 1 tsp mixed spice
• ½ tsp allspice
• pinch of salt

For the decorations

• M&M's

• white writing icing pen

• edible eye decorations

  optional

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Method

• step 1

  Preheat the oven to 180°C/340°F/Gas 4/Fan 170°C. Line 2 baking sheets with non-stick baking paper. Whisk the butter and sugar in a mixing bowl, until light and fluffy

• step 2

  Add the syrup and treacle and egg. Mix well. Then add the flours, spices and salt. Mix again until you have a soft dough. Wrap in clingfilm and chill the dough in the fridge for 30 minutes

• step 3

  Roll out the dough on a floured work surface. Stamp out 20 gingerbread shapes. Place on the baking sheets

• step 4

  Bake for about 15 minutes, until lightly golden and firm in the middle. Cool on a wire rack.

• step 5

  Decorate the cookies to give them 'people' features. Use the the M&M's to make 3 buttons down the front. Use the white icing pens to draw a mouth and mark out the arms and legs. For the eyes, either use the edible eyes (stuck on with a tiny blob of white icing) or use the white icing pen to make 2 dots above the mouth

Pic: Annabel Karmel

Recipe extracted from Annabel Karmel's new book for budding young cooks My First Cookbook

Authors

Annabel Karmel

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