Christmas Gingerbread Men

With my Autism and only just being 5 years old, I would find it hard to write and understand why I’m handing out Christmas Cards.

To feel included in the Christmas giving in my class, I have baked all my friends a Gingerbread biscuit. I love them and know they’re yummy and I will know that I’m doing something nice by handing them out to my classmates and teachers.

I really hope everyone enjoys them, Merry Christmas!

The Gingerbread Men Recipe

You will need the following ingredients

• 175g golden caster sugar
• 6 tbsp clear runny honey
• 1 tbsp orange juice
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 tbsp ground ginger
• 1 tbsp cinnamon 
• 200g unsalted butter
• 450g plain flour
• 1/4 tsp salt
• Writing icing and smarties for decoration

How to make your gingerbread men:

First, you need to put the sugar, honey, orange juice, vanilla extract, ginger and cinnamon in a pan over a low heat and stir until all the sugar has dissolved. Take the pan off the heat and add the butter. Keep stirring until all the butter has melted, then leave the mixture to cool. 

It’s best to let your grown up do this bit for you. It’s nice to make them feel included early on, and cooker hobs can get very hot. 

Once the spicy mixture is cool you can pour it into a big bowl with the flour and salt and squish it all together until you have a big lump of dough. It smells lovely!😊 

Wrap the the dough in cling film and put it in the fridge over night. 

The next day you can roll out your dough and cut out your gingerbread men. You need to cook them in the oven at 180 degrees, for about 15 minutes until the edges go golden. 

When they are cool you can decorate your gingerbread men. I like using writing icing and smarties.   

Enjoy! 😋

Immy’s top tip: 

Putting my dough in the fridge until the next day can be hard to accept because I like to live in the moment, and don’t really understand why I have to wait. However it is the best thing for my gingerbread men, and I’m told that it’s teaching me patience 🙄

I like to have an emergency biscuit ready just in case though, to help take my mind off things and stop me feeling too disappointed 😉