John's festive gingerbread

Add a touch of Christmas to your hot cup of cocoa with John Whaite's gingerbread mug huggers.

Gingerbread Mug Huggers

Ingredients

For the dough

350g plain flour plus extra for rolling out

1 tsp bicarb

2 tsp ground ginger

1 tsp ground cinnamon

125g salted butter, cubed

120g light brown muscovado sugar

55g caster sugar

4 tbsp golden syrup

1 medium egg

Royal icing ingredients

1 large egg white

250g icing sugar

Lemon juice to slacken

Ingredients for the flood icing

200g icing sugar

Extras

Piping bag fitted with writing nozzle

Disposable piping bags for the flood icing

Small cookie cutters – heart, Christmas tree and star shapes are best

Edible glitters and decorations

A range of food colours

Cocktail sticks for feathering

Method

• Preheat the oven 190C/170C fan/gas mark 5. Sieve the flour, bicarb, ginger and cinnamon into a mixing bowl. In a saucepan place the butter, sugars and syrup and heat over low until everything melts together. Remove from the heat and beat in the egg, then add to the dry ingredients and beat to a smooth batter. This will be quite stiff, so will need a little elbow grease. I find it easier to get in there with my hands and knead until smooth. Flatten the dough into a disk, wrap in cling, and refrigerate for 20 minutes or so.

• Dust the worktop lightly in flour and roll out the dough to about 5mm thick – keep it moving, adding more flour underneath if it starts to stick. Use the cutters to cut out as many shapes as possible, then at the base of each shape, cut a small rectangle of dough out that goes one third into the depth of the shape – this will be the slot. You may need to remove the trunk from the Christmas tree shape as it may not be wide enough to cut into. Cut this hole slightly larger than you need, as the biscuit will swell during baking.

• Arrange the shapes well spaced on a baking sheet and bake for 15-20 minutes, until lightly golden and slightly darker around the edge. Remove from the oven and allow the cookies to cool on the baking sheet.

• For the royal icing whisk the egg white until foamy then add the icing sugar and whisk in until smooth – this is so much easier in a freestanding mixer fitted with whisk attachment. Add the lemon juice, a drop at a time, until the icing is thick but smooth – it won’t fall from the whisk, but it will droop like an icicle.

• For the flood icing, put the icing sugar into a bowl and add water, a teaspoon at a time, until the icing is thickly runny, like warm golden syrup. If you want to make different colours, divide this mixture now and colour each batch with a different colour.

• Put the royal icing into the piping bag fitted with writing nozzle and pipe a thin, joined line all the way around the edge of each biscuit. Let that dry for five minutes, then load the other piping bag(s) with the coloured flood icing(s). Snip a little off the end of the bag then delicately flood the cookie with the coloured icing – don’t add too much, otherwise it will overflow the royal icing and make a right old mess.

• Add any decorations then allow the icing to completely dry before serving propped up on the rim of a mug