Several weeks ago I saw a kit for mini gingerbread houses to balance on the edge of a mug. So I tried to recreate it by making templates and baking my own biscuits. The result was a set of very tasty biscuits, sadly incapable of retaining their shape whilst they baked. But delicious nonetheless. It might be possible to cut them into house shapes whilst they’re still warm, but I decided to just use a Christmas cutter and make them into normal biscuits. If you’re wondering, they were snowman-shaped when the went into the oven, but they swelled up as they cooked.

Ingredients (Makes about 20 biscuits, depending on the size of the cutter you use)

250g gluten free plain flour

100g ground almonds

1tsp bicarbonate of soda

100g caster sugar

1tsp ground cinnamon

2tsp ground ginger

1tbsp golden syrup

1 tbsp treacle

50g margarine

1tsp vanilla extract

1 egg

Method

1) Preheat the oven to 170*C fan.

2) In a bowl, mix together the flour,  almonds, bicarbonate of soda, sugar and spices.

3) Add the remaining ingredients EXCEPT the egg and mix well.

4) Beat the egg and add it to the mixture.

5) Mix together until you have a soft dough. You will probably have to abandon the spoon and use your hands. Add a little bit more flour if it is too sticky.

6) Dust a work surface with flour and roll the dough out to a depth of about half a centimetre. It doesn’t like being re-rolled a lot so you might be better doing this in smaller batches.

7) Cut out biscuits with a cutter and put them onto a greased baking sheet.

8) Bake for 10-15 minutes, until they are just firm. Then allow them to cool on a cooling tray.