If there’s a food product that the Lake District has become famous for, it’s probably gingerbread! Especially in the winter, there’s nothing like that warming, soft, slightly spicy and sweet taste to make you feel proper Christmassy. How about treating family and friends this Christmas with this fab-ewe-lous gingerbread cookies recipe, featuring Herdy’s adorable face?

Ingredients for making Herdy Christmas gingerbread cookies

For gingerbread

This recipe makes roughly 30 pieces of gingerbread

  • 16 oz/450g plain flour
  • ¼ tsp bicarbonate of soda
  • 5 tsp ground ginger
  • 2 tsp ground cinnamon
  • 6 oz/170g butter
  • 6 oz/170g soft brown sugar
  • 6 tablespoons golden syrup

You will also need:

  • Greaseproof paper
  • Baking tray
  • Rolling pin
  • Biscuit Stamper
  • Piping bags
  • Sugar decorations - we used tiny snowballs.

For royal icing

This recipe makes 700g of icing

  • 3 medium egg whites
  • 1½ tsp lemon juice
  • 700g icing sugar, sieved
  • colouring paste

How to make Herdy Christmas gingerbread cookies

1. Melt butter, sugar & syrup in a pan. Mix the dry ingredients in a bowl, then add the melted ingredients and mix together well until it forms a ball. Roll out on a floured surface to approximately 7mm thick. Cut out the gingerbread using a circular cutter, slightly larger than the biscuit stamp. You can use either a straight-edged or a fluted cutter for this. Then use the Herdy Biscuit Stamp to make biscuits. Bake for 14 minutes at 160°C

Finished Herdy Gingerbread cookies base

2. Whisk the egg whites until meringue-like. Stir in the lemon juice, and gradually stir in the sieved icing sugar until smooth. Add colouring of your choice. We made Herdy green, blue, pink, orange, and purple, alongside the white and black that you will need to make the faces. Once mixed, put into piping bags ready to decorate.

Royal icing, in 5 Herdy colours

3. Pipe a thin white outline within the Herdy face impression on your biscuits and allow to harden.

Face outline with white icing done
Filling in the face outline on the gingerbread cookie

4. Flood the face shape with white icing to create the face.

Flood in the face shape on the gingerbread cookie, take your time
Flood in the face shape on the gingerbread cookie

5. With the coloured royal icing, pipe within the circular shapes on the biscuits made by the Herdy biscuit stamper to decorate your biscuits.

Blue gingerbread cookie
Remember to take your time, and allow each stage to harden
Pink Herdy gingerbread cookie!
Outline the circle of the gingerbread cookie then fill in with your colour choice

6. We used tiny snowballs to decorate our biscuits, just like the ones on our Christmas coasters and tablemats.

Filled in Herdy Christmas gingerbread cookies

7. Using a piping bag with a very fine nozzle, use some black icing to create the eyes, nose, and mouth of your Herdy biscuits.

And there you have it!

Colourful, christmassy, spiced herdy biscuits for family and friends. Show us your Herdy biscuit creations via our social media (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest); we always love to hear from ewe!

If there’s a food product that the Lake District has become famous for, it’s probably gingerbread! Especially in the winter, there’s nothing like that warming, soft, slightly spicy and sweet taste to make you feel proper Christmassy. How about treating family and friends this Christmas with this fab-ewe-lous gingerbread cookies recipe, featuring Herdy’s adorable face? [...]