These three characters in the above photo were made by my daughter when she was a child. If you are offended by one of them, I sincerely apologise for it, but she did decorate them well, didn’t she?

My children have been always creative and they enjoyed making Gingerbread Characters when they were young. To decorate the characters, they used icing, chocolate chips, ‘Smarties’ and lollies.

One day I made a characters’ mouth (lips) using sliced red lolly snake, and that upset my son so badly. He removed the red lips from the character and never let me make red lips again. I still don’t know why, and he doesn’t remember it.

Gingerbread Characters bring back lots of memories.

Makes

12 Characters

Ingredients

125g Butter *softened
1/2 cup Dark Brown Sugar *lightly packed
1/4 cup Molasses
1 Egg
1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
2 cups Self-Raising Flour *you might need extra 1 to 2 tablespoons
1/4 teaspoon Salt
1 to 2 teaspoons Ground Ginger
1 teaspoon Ground Cinnamon

Decoration

Icing Sugar
Water
Food Colouring

Original Recipe

This is my precious original Gingerbread Recipe written by my son when he was a toddler. His writing was difficult to read, I wrote the translation on it.

Method
  1. Beat softened Butter and Sugar in a large bowl until creamy. Add Molasses, Egg and Vanilla, and beat until well combined.
  2. Stir in the Flour, Salt, Ginger and Cinnamon, mix well to combine. Knead on a lightly floured surface until smooth. You can add extra Flour if required. Divide the dough into 2 portions. Shape each into a disc, cover with plastic wrap, and place in the fridge for 30 minutes.
  3. Preheat the oven to 170°C. Line two oven trays with baking paper.
  4. Use a lightly floured rolling pin to roll out one portion of the dough on a lightly floured surface to 4mm thick. Use gingerbread man/woman/character cutter to cut out shapes and then carefully transfer to the prepared oven trays, leaving a little room between each. Re-roll any scraps to make more shapes. Repeat with the other portion of dough.
  5. Bake in preheated oven for 10 to 15 minutes or until brown. Remove from oven. Transfer to a rack to cool.
  6. To make the icing for decoration, mix icing sugar with small amount of hot water and food colouring.