Gingerbread Biscuits

I've never been great at making cookies, and I usually leave it to others to share theirs. I did however find myself at home with a whole bunch of kids, and before I knew it, I had organised an afternoon for them to help with some cookies in the kitchen. Amazing the amount of dough that gets saved when you tell them the more cookies we will get. I guess many hands make light work, too. Of course I'd only read halfway through the recipe before starting, and realised that the dough had to rest for at least 3 hours, so there was a visit to town, a little walk around the lake, and some coffee in between. Plan ahead!

50 ml (1 3/4 fl oz) maple syrup
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
a pinch of ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom
100 ml (3 1/2 fl oz) pouring (single) cream
100 g (3 1/2 oz) caster (superfine) sugar
100 g (3 1/2 oz) butter, softened
1 egg
250 g (9 oz/2 cups) plain (all-purpose) flour
1 teaspoon baking powder

Put the maple syrup, ginger, cinnamon, cloves and cardamom in a small saucepan over low heat, stirring to dissolve all the spices. Remove from the heat and allow to cool a bit, then stir in the cream with a wooden spoon. Mix well, making sure that nothing is left stuck on the bottom.

Beat the sugar and butter together for a minute or two, until the sugar dissolves. Add the egg. Mix in the flour and baking powder alternately with the maple syrup cream. Mix well with a wooden spoon until the mixture is thick and smooth. Cover the dough with plastic wrap and leave in the fridge for at least 3 hours or even overnight.

Preheat the oven to 190 deg C (375 deg F/Gas 5) and line two baking trays with baking paper.

Take lumps pf the dough and roll out on a floured surface with a floured rolling pin to about 5mm (1/4 thick). Add extra flour as you roll if you find the dough too soft to handle. (You can also make the biscuits very thin if you prefer, and they will need less time in the oven.) Cut out the shapes with your cookie cutters. Put about half the shapes on the baking trays, leaving just a little space between them for spreading. Bake one tray at a time for 12-15 minutes, or until the biscuits are golden with a deeper gold around the edges.

Lift them onto wire racks to cool and use the same trays to bake the rest of the biscuits. (If you are making holes to hang them from your Christmas tree, do that now and then hang them when they harden.) These will keep in a biscuit tin or plastic bag for up to 2 weeks.

Makes about 35 biscuits, depending on the shapes.

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