Cooking and Gardening with Kids
Makes 24
Ingredients
- Oil for greasing
- 2 cups plain all purpose flour
- 1 tsp ground ginger
- 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 4 tbsp margarine
- 1/2 cup soft, light brown sugar
- 3 tbs golden syrup
- 2 tbsp milk
- 75g dark chocolate
- sweets of your choice for coating/sprinkles
- coloured icing pens (optional; for decorations)
Method
Brush two baking sheets with a little oil. Stir the flour, spices and baking soda into a mixing bowl.
Place the margarine, sugar and syrup in a pan and heat gently until the margarine has melted.
Remove the pan from the heat. Pour the mixture into the bowl containing the flour. Add the milk and mix to a firm dough with a wooden spoon. Chill for 30 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 160°C.
Lightly knead the dough for one minute on a lightly floured surface, until it is pliable. Roll out the biscuit dough to about 5mm with a rolling pin. Carefully stamp out the shapes with cookie cutters.
Transfer the biscuits to the oiled baking sheets with a palette knife. Bring the dough trimmings together into a ball and roll out again. Stamp out as many shapes as you can until all the dough is used.
Bake for 10 minutes until golden. Remove from the oven and loosen with a palette knife.
Set aside to cool and harden a little on the baking sheets.
Transfer to a wire rack once cool with a palette knife.
Break the chocolate into pieces and put in a heatproof bowl. Set over a pan of simmering water.
Heat until melted.
Use some of the chocolate to dip cookies. Leave to sit.
ginger people
If you’re making ginger people:
Spoon some of the chocolate into a piping bag fitted with a small nozzle and pipe faces on all biscuits.
Decorate as you like.