Andrew MacKenzie's gingerbread safari recipe
This fun gingerbread recipe by Andrew MacKenzie is a great way to get kids involved in baking. This safari requires animal cookie cutters, but if you want to make good old-fashioned gingerbread men instead, go ahead!
See method- Serves 20
- 60mins cooking and preparation time, plus 60mins chilling time
- 152 calories / serving
Ingredients
For the cookie dough
- 350g (12oz) plain flour
- 1 tsp bicarbonate soda
- 2 tsp ground cinnamon
- 2 tsp ground ginger
- 17g (3/4oz) soft brown sugar
- 125g butter, softened
- 60ml (4 tbsp) golden syrup
- 1 egg
For the cookie frosting
- 125g icing sugar
- 1½ tbsp milk
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- red food colouring
- green food colouring
- yellow food colouring
- blue food colouring
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Shop ingredientsEach serving contains
- Energy
- 675kJ 152.0kcal
- Fat
- 6g
- Saturates
- 3g
- Salt
- 0.3g
- Sugars
- 10g
of the Reference intake
Carbohydrate 22.4gProtein 2.1gFibre 0.7g
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Method
- Sift the dry ingredients for the cookie dough into a food processor and pulse a few times to combine.
- Add the softened butter to the mixture and continue to pulse until breadcrumbs are formed, then transfer to a large mixing bowl.
- Heat the golden syrup in a pan until runny and add to the mixing bowl. Add the egg and mix together to form a smooth dough.
- Pat the dough into a ball and squish down slightly. Wrap in cling film and keep in the fridge for 1 hour.
- Preheat the oven to Gas Mark 4, 180°C, fan 160°C.
- Flour the rolling pin and a clean, dry surface. As evenly as possible, roll out the gingerbread dough to 1/2cm thick.
- Grab your little helpers and get them to create the cookies using animal-shaped cutters. They will love seeing their safari animals start to form!
- Pop in the oven for 10-15 minutes until the gingerbread animals are golden-brown, then remove and allow to cool for 10 minutes on a wire rack.
- While the gingerbread are cooling, prepare the icing. Mix together the icing sugar, vanilla and milk to form a thick paste. Add a little more icing sugar if the mixture isn’t thick enough.
- Spoon into 4 separate bowls and add a different food colouring to each bowl, adjusting the quantity depending on how bright you want the icing to be.
- Get the kids to decorate the gingerbread creatures as they wish. In addition to icing, you could also add silver balls, sweets or dried fruit - it all adds to the fun!
- See more Baking recipes for kids
