In some weird twist in my life, the Coronavirus Pandemic has created an amateur baker out of someone who previously couldn’t and wouldn’t bake anything. Today I had the hankering for ginger biscuits, perhaps craving the spicy, sugary flavours.

I used this recipe, however didn’t go full tilt with the gingerbread people, I just made the cookie version of this recipe: Jamie Oliver Gingerbread People

In my hesitance to make a huge batch in case this became a tragic flop of lost ingredients, I used half of the ingredients in the recipe:

Ingredients:

• 150g all purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1 tsp ground ginger
• 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
• 60g unsalted butter
• 50g soft light brown sugar
• 1.5t Tbsp golden syrup

Method:

• Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius on the fan setting
• Line 1 large oven proof baking tray with baking paper
• Add the flour, bicarb and spices into a large mixing bowl
• Add the butter, sugar and golden syrup into a Pyrex glass jug into the microwave on a low heat to melt (The recipe said add this into a pan to melt but my pan is questionable and not none stick anymore so this seemed like the best idea)
• Add the melted ingredients from the jug into the mixing bowl and mix everything together
• I found the batter was very dry and didn’t form a dough, or even a cookie dough ball when I tried to combine it into a ball, so I added 1 Tbsp of melted butter and it combined much better together into mouldable dough
• Once I added the Tbsp of melted butter, the batter stuck together much easier but I still had to mould the cookie ball into a cookie shape by hand before squashing it on the baking tray
• Leave 2 cm (2 finger gap) between the cookie balls on the baking tray and bake in the oven for 12 minutes
• When they are golden brown, transfer them onto a cooking rack for about 20 minutes

Although my cookies tasted great when I tried them, I had to tamper with the recipe a bit to make a proper dough to bake with, so I might try another one next time I have a hankering for some spicy cookies!