Method:

Preheat oven to gas mark 5. 

Makes around 24 depending on the size of your cutters.

1. Heat the golden syrup until it liquefies, then cool

2. Sift the flour, bicarbonate of soda and the spices into a bowl. Add the butter and rub together with your fingertips until the mixture looks like breadcrumbs.

3. Add the sugar to the breadcrumbs mixture and mix well.

4. Beat the egg into the cooled syrup until well blended.

5. Make a well in the breadcrumb mixture. Pour in the syrup mix and bring together to a rough dough.

6. On a lightly floured work surface, knead the dough until smooth. At this point we had to add about 100g of flour into the mix by kneading it. It was still sticky at this point so we wrapped it in cling film and placed in the fridge overnight. 

7. Once you remove it from the fridge, lightly flour your work surface again and roll out the dough to be between 0.5-1cm thick and using your cutter, cut out your men. With an excess dough re-roll and recut until you've used it all (my boyfriend decided to make a giant gingerbread man and Christmas pudding with our excess for him to decorate).

8. Bake for 10-12 minutes or until golden brown, make sure you keep an eye on them. Transfer to wire rack to cool.

10. In a saucepan, heat some water and place you bowl of chocolate over the water. Stirring continuously until it is melted ( 2-5 minutes should do it).

11. Immediately start dipping them top side of your gingerbread men into the chocolate, you may need to use a spoon to even out the chocolate. 

12. Once all the gingerbread men are covered, allowed them to cool slightly.

13. Then you can go to town with your icing pens to add patterns to your men!

I strongly advise buying decent icing pens or making the icing yourself, as the pens we had were on the cheaper side and unfortunately the consistency wasn't great and made the patterns rather uneven.

They were still super yummy and I can't wait to make them again!

How do you decorate your gingerbread men?

So remember, each day, live a little, laugh a little and love a little. ♥