Dieters Gingerbread Recipes

Steps:

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees (175 degrees C). Grease and lightly flour one 8 inch square baking pan.
• Cream shortening and sugar until light. Add the egg and molasses and beat thoroughly.
• Sift together the flour, salt, baking soda, ground ginger, and ground cinnamon.
• Bring water to a boil and add alternately with flour mixture to the creamed mixture, beating well after each addition. Pour batter into prepared pan.
• Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 35 to 40 minutes. Serve warm and enjoy.

Steps:

• Heat the butter, syrup and sugar together in a small pan until melted, stirring occasionally. Set aside to cool slightly.
• Mix together the bicarb, ginger, cinnamon and flour in a large bowl. Pour in the buttery syrup mixture and stir to combine, then use your hands to bring together to form a dough. The dough will be soft at this point, but it'll firm up in the fridge.
• Put the dough on a sheet of baking parchment, shape into a rectangle, and lay another sheet of parchment on top of it. Roll the dough out to a thickness of ½cm. Transfer to a baking sheet to keep it flat, leaving the parchment in place, then chill in the fridge for 1 hr.
• Heat the oven to 190C/170C fan/gas 5 and line a large baking sheet with more baking parchment. Remove the dough from the fridge and cut out shapes using a cookie cutter. We used 9cm stars, but you can choose any shape. We also made some with smaller stars cut out of the centre to thread ribbon through and hang from a Christmas tree.
• Place the shapes, spread apart, on the lined baking sheet, and bake for 10-12 mins. (Depending on the size of the cutters you use, they might need a few minutes more or less cooking in the oven). Leave to cool completely on the baking sheet.
• Meanwhile, mix the icing sugar with 1-2 tbsp water - you want to create a consistency that's thick and pipeable, and not too thin or it will run. Decorate the cooled biscuits with the icing using a piping bag with a thin nozzle. Find out how to make a piping bag.

Steps:

• Heat oven to 325°F. Grease and flour bottom and sides of square pan, 9x9x2 inches.
• Beat all ingredients with electric mixer on low speed 30 seconds, scraping bowl constantly. Beat on medium speed 3 minutes, scraping bowl occasionally. Pour into pan.
• Bake 50 to 55 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Serve warm or cool.

Steps:

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour a 9-inch square pan.
• In a large bowl, cream together the sugar and butter. Beat in the egg, and mix in the molasses.
• In a bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, and cloves. Blend into the creamed mixture. Stir in the hot water. Pour into the prepared pan.
• Bake 1 hour in the preheated oven, until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean. Allow to cool in pan before serving.