Gingerbread men

Gingerbread has two meanings in British cooking. One is a cake, the other a biscuit (cookie). This is the biscuit recipe.

Ingredients
butter
dark sugar
treacle
2 tblspns beaten egg
plain flour
1 tblsp ginger
1 tblsp cinnamon
pinch ground cloves

Equipment
bowl

food mixer
baking trays
baking paper (optional)

oven:
time in oven: 10-12 mins

preparation time:
making gingerbread mix
cutting out

Measure out the butter, sugar, sugar and spices, and . Then beat in the egg and treacle, then the .
Push the mix into a dough, turn out and roll out about the thickness of a pound coin.
Line the baking tins with baking paper (this is optional). Cut into the shape of men (or women!) using a cutter, or by eye. Place on trays. This is a lot of dough, so you will need two trays. The biscuits don't spread, so they can be put close together.
Put the tins in the oven. This needs to cook for 10-12 minutes. Watch them to make sure they don't burn, and swap trays on oven shelves to make sure they cook evenly. You can look at them while cooking, as there is no rising to collapse! They are done when they start to colour round the edge.
Lift the biscuits off the trays and let them cool.

It seems odd to measure egg in tablespoons, but that's what the recipe said! It's quite a good idea, in fact, as eggs vary in size. I made a mini omelette with what was left over. I hate wasting food!
This makes a LOT of dough! I used half amounts and still got a lot of biscuits out of it.
I feel that gingerbread men need eyes. I've used bits of white chocolate (from a small pack of white chocolate buttons). These needed to be cut very small, as the cutter made quite small men. They've burnt slightly, so perhaps milk or plain chocolate would be better. The traditional decoration is raisins. Or you could use icing sugar decorations after cooking.
I've tried out another recipe, very similar, but it had half teaspoon of bicarb of soda in it. This made the biscuits rise slightly, which seemed a good idea, but does mean they spread out slightly. It also used ground cardmon seeds. They cooked at mark 4 (180 C) for 12-14 mins.
Cutting out shapes: If you have plastic cutters, they don't seem to work very well. Don't use ones with sharp points, as dough gets stuck in them. It helps to wipe the edges (with your fingers) after every cut.
I think it's better not to make the dough too thin when rolling out. Or don't even roll out - just pat the dough flattish. Spread flour on both sides of the dough (if it's sticky) while doing this. You can even make balls of dough and flatten slightly, to make domed biscuits.

Gingerbread men