If you're visiting Sydney and have a craving for seriously good baked goods, find your way to Bourke Street Bakery.  This gingerbread recipe has been made many times over for birthdays, Christmas, just because and most recently the Junior School Easter Bake Sale. Double the recipe to make 24 people, quadruple it to have dough in the freezer for a rainy day!

Ingredients

• 280g plain flour
• 1⁄4 tsp salt
• 1⁄4 tsp bicarb of soda
• 11⁄2 tsp ground ginger
• 1⁄2 tsp cinnamon
• 1⁄2 tsp nutmeg
• 100g butter
• 100g brown sugar
• 80g golden syrup
• 1 egg yolk
• 1⁄2 egg

Royal Icing

• 200g icing sugar
• 1 eggwhite
• 1⁄2 tsp lemon juice
• food colouring (optional)

Method

1. Prepare

Preheat the oven to 175C. Lightly grease 2 baking trays. Sift the flour, salt, bicarb of soda and spices together in a bowl.

2. Mix

Using an electric mixer on medium, cream butter, brown sugar and golden syrup until mixture is pale and light. Add egg yolk and egg and mix until thoroughly incorporated, then add dry ingredients in three batches, mixing thoroughly, until a dough forms.

3. Roll

Flatten dough into a disc and rest in the refrigerator for at least 20 min or for up to 3 days. Remove from the fridge and allow the dough to soften slightly, then, using a rolling pin, roll out between two sheets of baking paper until about 4mm thick.

4. Bake

Cut into desired shapes using biscuit cutters or a knife. If the dough crumbles when rolling, press back into a disc and roll out again. To maximise use of dough, press any offcuts into a disc and re-roll as well. Put biscuits on trays and bake for 15-20 min. Cool completely on wire racks at room temperature, then ice with royal icing.

5. Icing

Sift the icing sugar through a very fine sieve.Put the eggwhite in a bowl and add 1 tbsp of the sugar. Using a wooden spoon, beat to form a smooth paste, adding sugar 1 tbsp at a time until the mixture reaches the desired consistency. Stir in lemon juice. If tinting the icing, divide mixture into small bowls and add a few drops of food colouring to each one.

6. Assemble

Put the icing in a piping bag fitted with a very fine tip and pipe the desired shapes on the cooled biscuits. Allow icing to set, then store biscuits in an airtight container for up to 2 weeks.

bourkestreetbakery.com.au