The Baking Biker Chic

Last year on Facebook there was a picture of gingerbread reindeers, which were effectively upside down gingerbread men. Facebook memories reminded me of these cute little biscuits so I set about creating some for myself. And now I’ve been creating them for others too – so to enable everyone to enjoy them, here’s the recipe:

Ingredients (makes about 20 large size shapes or 40 small shapes)

• 115g vegetable or soya spread
• 450g plain flour
• 4tsp ground ginger
• 2tsp cinnamon
• 2tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 100g golden syrup or treacle
• 115g light muscovado sugar
• 1 replacement egg (I use Orgran – 1 tsp mixed with a tablespoon of water)

You need to be fast when working with gingerbread biscuit dough, it’s soft and pliable when it’s warm but as it cools it becomes harder to work with so make sure you have everything you need once it’s ready.

Method

1. Pre-heat your oven to 180 degrees centigrade and line a cookie tray with non stick baking parchment or liner
2. Place the spread, syrup and sugar into a pan and slowly over a low heat melt an mix them together
3. Make your replacement egg and set aside
4. In a bowl, mix your dry ingredients then add the melted mixture and your egg replacer
5. Mix thoroughly and turn out onto a floured surface and cut desired shapes.
6. Bake in your pre-heated oven for about 10 minutes depending on your oven – you want them to be firm and lightly browned
7. Leave to cool before decorating.

For the reindeers, I used fondant for the nose and painted it with food gel to give it a shiny appearance. The antlers were made from chocolate fondant although you could use vegan royal icing too – see the recipe here