Ginger Bread Men

Ingredients

• 140g unsalted butter
• 100g dark muscovado sugar
• 3 tbsp golden syrup
• 350g plain flour
• 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 2 tsp ground ginger and 1 tsp ground cinnaman
• pinch of cayenne pepper (optional)
• 2 balls stem ginger from a jar, chopped

To decorate

icing, sweets, glacer cherries..whatever you fancy

1. Heat oven to 200C/180C gas mark 6. Line 2 baking sheets with baking parchment.
2. Melt butter, sugar and syrup in a pan. Mix flour, soda, spices and a pinch of salt in a bowl. Stir in the butter mix and chopped ginger to make a stiff-ish dough. 
3.Roll out dough to about 5mm thick. Stamp out gingerbread men, re-rolling and pressing the trimmings back together and rolling again. 
4. Lift onto baking sheets & bake for 12 mins until golden. Cool 10 mins on the sheets, then lift onto cooling racks. 
5. To decorate, mix icing sugar with a few drops of water until thick and smooth.

                                                 (sorry about the shadowy photos)