As
I did previously, to turn this recipe vegan I just swapped out the butter for
dairy-free margarine, simple! While this recipe is
very self explanatory, one tip I will give it to melt the margarine, sugar and
syrup on a very low heat to avoid burning the sugar. This also helps keep the
temperature of the mixture down (obviously) which is useful for when you mix it
in with the flour and come to manipulate your dough as if it was too warm it’d
be hard to handle and need chilling time.
Another
suggestion would be to add some more ginger. If you’re considering making
these, I’m assuming ginger is something you like so if I were you I’d add
another 1-2 tsps of ground ginger to the mix. There are obviously other spices
such as cinnamon that you can include but as I personally don’t like them I
won’t be recommending that you do!
With my
gingerbread man cutter I made 28 men before I gave up re-rolling and finished
the dough off in a blob which gives you the perfect excuse to erm… ‘test’ the
outcome when it comes out of the oven. I left mine to cool on the tray for
about 3-5minutes before transferring tem to a wire rack to cool completely. To
decorate I just outlined the men using icing pens and drew on a face and some
buttons. You can of course use the icing to stick other things on or push
things in for the eyes while the dough is still soft and warm.
Here is the
recipe:
125g dairy-free
margarine (unsalted butter)
100g dark
muscovado sugar
4 tbsp golden
syrup
325g plain flour
1 tsp bicarbonate
of soda
2tsp ground
ginger (I recommend using 3-4 tsp)
Preheat the oven to 170°C. Line baking trays with baking parchment
Melt the butter, sugar and syrup in a medium saucepan, stirring occasionally,
then remove from the heat
Sieve the flour, bicarbonate of soda and ginger into a bowl and stir the
melted ingredients into the dry ingredients to make a stiff dough
Turn out onto a lightly floured surface and roll to a thickness of about
5mm. Dip biscuit cutters into flour before cutting the dough. Place the shapes
onto the lined baking trays and bake, in batches, for 9-10 minutes until light
golden brown and allow to
cool completely before icing
