gingerbread cookies

I think I must've been slightly delirious on December 23rd; I started baking the christmas baubles (last post) and then midway through, I thought it would be a good idea to make some gingerbread men to take to work. Well why not, may as well be part of the Christmas spirit. So whilst putting the finishing touches on the christmas baubles, these gingerbread men were baking away. The recipe was from the Bourke St. Bakery book (yes, another one of my cookbooks!) and looks like most people thought it was a good recipe.

Here's a pic of the gingerbread men in the book. My gingerbread men cutter was slightly smaller but more importantly, got used for the first time after being buried in my bucket of cookie cutters (trust me, I have more than a hundred cutters sitting in a few places in the house).

I could have fridged the dough for a bit longer - notice the thumb prints that I've made as I was transferring it to the baking paper?

Each batch only takes about 15-20 minutes to bake. I had over 1.5kg of dough and only managed to bake half of it that night. Even with half, I made over 40 gingerbread men to take into work the next day.

The decorated gingerbread men - some with their tongues sticking out, others in their undies, others with ties and one even has some clothes on!

By the time I was done and wrapped each gingerbread man into a little bag, it was well into the early hours of the morning. It was worth it though judging by the reaction of everyone that received one and had a taste.

A week on, the gingerbread men were still crisp (provided you keep in an airtight container) and the taste of these gingerbread men certainly earned me a bundle of compliments. For many, it reminded them of the gingerbread men they used to have when they were a little kid and well for me, it was my first time baking them I had a ball of fun. Kudos to the lovely Bourke St. Bakery cookbook, you are really a keeper!