gingerbread biscuits

It's not officially the holiday season until that first gingerbread biscuit has been wolfed down, am I right? 

We wanted to bring you the perfect gingerbread biscuit recipe. But that statement alone is plagued with trouble - we all have a different idea of perfect! However we think we've nailed it with this recipe.
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May the streets of your neighbourhood be filled with the salubrious scent of baking gingerbread over the next couple of weeks.

Makes approx 30

Ingredients:
125g butter
1/2 cup honey, maple syrup or brown rice syrup 
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 tbsp ground ginger
2 tsp mixed spice
2 1/2 cups cake flour
1 tsp bicarb soda

Method:
Preheat the oven to 180C-200C.

Place butter, honey/maple syrup/rice syrup and brown sugar in a small saucepan, and heat until melted. Cool in a saucepan for approximately 20 minutes.

Add egg to the butter mixture and whisk well.

Place ginger, mixed spice, bicarb and flour in a mixing bowl and mix well.
Add butter mix and stir to combine into a sticky dough.**

To make gingerbread shapes, roll out the sticky, thick mixture between sheets of baking paper, to ½ cm thick, and use a biscuit cutter to cut out shapes. The thinner you roll the crunchier the biscuit will be. Place on an oven tray lined with baking paper or a reusable silicone wrap. Place gingerbread shapes on a tray leaving 3cm between each biscuit.

OR to make plain roundish biscuits simply place teaspoon sized balls of the dough onto the lined tray, spaced apart.

Bake for 8-10 mins. Leave on the tray for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely. Store the biscuits in an airtight container for up to a week or you can freeze them for up to a month.

**At this point you can roll the dough into a log and wrap in cling wrap (to prevent freezer burn) and freeze for up to 6 months. You can then simply thaw, cut and bake fresh when required.

​For a Gluten Free Version:
You can substitute the cake flour for an All Purpose Gluten Free Flour but you may need to add a bit more liquid sweetener to balance the dough texture.