Best gingerbread recipe

It’s like when you have a child “baking” just crystallises out of thin air around you. YOU MUST BAKE. Cupcakes, cookies, scones, bread, flapjacks - whatever. I found that not only was there was a compelling personal urge to do this, I was also constantly being asked to by nursery and then school. It’s not even like my children enjoyed, wanted to help or could be helpful even if they wanted to join in.

I wised up quite fast. I realised, by the time Sam was born, that baking doesn’t get you out of all the other shit that you have to do. Just because you bake, it doesn’t mean that the baby will nap for longer. Just because you bake, it doesn’t mean that the toddler won’t draw all over the walls in permanent marker. Just because you bake, doesn’t mean that someone else will make dinner.

So I stopped baking, as I think most women do, quite quickly. Now, it is a special occasion thing only, like it really ought to be. Kitty was supposed to make some gingerbread men (people?) for DT/home economics at school but the practical lesson was cancelled by an irate teacher because her class couldn’t behave. Kitty is a bit sad about this because she was looking forward to it, so we are going to make them at home, using a gingerbread recipe I first wrote about on Recipe Rifle many years ago. I am reprinting it for you here.

Before you dismiss this let me emphasise that not all gingerbread recipes are good - so this is one to cut and keep.

Ingredients

130g butter

100g dark brown sugar

6 tbsps golden syrup

350g plain flour

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

2 heaped tsp ground ginger

large pinch mixed spices

Set your oven to 170C

1 Melt the butter, sugar and syrup together in a room pan over a medium heat for about 10 minutes.

2 Sieve together the dry ingredients, add to the sugar mixture about a third at a time and mix. This will be alarmingly sloppy but don’t worry, you are about this chill it in the fridge and it will firm up in here.

3 Chill in the fridge for 30 mins

4 Roll out and cut. Bake for about 10 minutes, but do a few tester biscuits first to find the perfect time. Gingerbread dough is very fragile when warm so if you have the patience, leave your shapes to cool in the tin for a few minutes before removing to a drying rack.

One thing I’ve been meaning to mention for ages is the brilliant new book from Imogen Edwards-Jones, The Witch’s Daughter. It is the sequel to The Witches of St Petersburg but you don’t need to have read the first one. It is basically about the Russian revolution, told from the perspective of some very wealthy aristocrats and it’s really brilliant. If only History GCSE had been as much fun.