Christmas leftovers take on a life of their own...

Christmas? Christmas?!  The festive season seems to be such a dim and distant memory already... for most people... Not here at Chez Lime, where we are still battling with leftover Christmas goodies.  As usual we bought in far too much - I blame all that snow for making us believe we had to stock pile!  We are making good progress though - we are down to the last few chocolates, only the toffees are left in the Quality Street tin and I put the last of the Pringles out of their misery yesterday.  Mind you, we still have nuts.  Nuts.  That great traditional Christmas nibble we all buy, but rarely eat...

But have you heard about my mini gingerbread men?

Well, I set about a baking frenzy on Christmas Eve, and after the Oatie Biscuits and the Chocolate Brownies, I unearthed the mini gingerbread men cutters that I had bought just because they were so cute, and sought out a recipe on the internet... It said it makes "about 20" - that's regular sized ones, so I didn't think to adjust the quantities... Mistake!

140 (yes, ONE HUNDRED AND FORTY) little men later I gave up... Yes, I did waste a little of the dough, but come on, enough is enough!

So we ate as many of them as we could, but I think they may have been breeding!  The little blighters are getting everywhere...

This one was discovered having a nice hot bubble bath....

This one is wondering where he is going to keep his pocket money...

I caught these two naughty boys at the Christmas brandy!

And this very brave little chap has challenged the last mince pie...

...who has crumbled under the pressure!!

Anyway, for now they have been rounded up and are safely contained - poor things are exhausted after their adventures - but I'm sure they will be up to more tricks soon!

If you would like to make an army of mini gingerbread men, or even just a few regular sized ones, this is the recipe I used:

(sorry, I can't acknowledge, I didn't keep the link!)

350g Plain flour

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

2 tsp ground ginger

1 tsp cinnamon

100g soft margarine

175g soft brown sugar

1 egg

4 tbsp golden syrup

Rub the margarine into the flour, bicarb and spices, add the sugar, then the egg and syrup and need together to make a dough.  Roll out and cut as desired.  Bake at 190 for 10 to 15 minutes depending on the size of your biscuit...

I used gluten free self raising flour instead of the regular plain flour and bicarb, and this seemed to work OK - and you could use treacle instead of syrup and/or dark brown sugar if you want a richer taste.  Alternatively if you don't like ginger, swap the spices of good old vanilla essence.

Have fun!