Spiced orange gingerbread
Makes about 50-60 biscuits PREP 1 hr COOK 12 mins
Easy Biscuits can be frozen before decorating

140g/5oz butter
100g/4oz light soft brown sugar
4 tbsp treacle
400g/14oz plain flour, plus a little extra for dusting
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
2 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp cinnamon
½ tsp ground cloves
zest and juice 1 orange
2 balls stem ginger, finely chopped, plus syrup from jar if you need
300g/11oz icing sugar
100g/4oz preserving sugar, granulated sugar or sugar crystals

1. Put the butter, brown sugar and treacle in a pan together and melt. Mix the four, bicarb, spices and orange zest in a large mixing bowl. Let the melted butter mix cool for a minute, then tip onto the flour mix and stir in. If the dough looks patchy, wait until it is cool enough to handle, then knead together until smooth. If it is a little dry and looks like it won’t roll, then dribble in a little syrup from the ginger jar and knead in.

2. Dust a surface with a little flour, then roll out half the dough on it. The dough will look a little cracked on the surface as you roll, but keep going until about 1/2cm thick and it should become shiny and smooth. Stamp out biscuits using cutters and transfer the biscuits to baking parchment lined trays for baking. Roll out the second half of the dough and repeat, then re-roll trimmings – you should get about 50-60 biscuits depending on cutter size.

3. Heat oven to 200C/180C fan/gas 6 and bake the biscuits for 8-10 mins until golden. Cool on the trays.

4. Sift the icing sugar into a bowl then stir in enough orange juice (and water if you need) to get a smooth, runny icing. Transfer cooled biscuits to a wire rack, drizzle over the icing and scatter biscuits with sugar. When set, tip off excess sugar.