Has anyone got a good gingerbread biscuit recipe?

[suzikettles]

I want to make little gingerbread men but the biscuit recipe I normally use spreads a lot which will make smaller shapes into unrecognisable blobs.

So, has anyone found a gingerbread biscuit recipe that doesn't spread too much? I was thinking of using a pepparkakor dough and not rolling them so thin, but I've never tried that before so don't know how much they tend to spread.

I use the one out of tana ramseys family cookbook, she says to make gingerbread lollies but I made small star biscuits and teddybears, they barely spread at all.
Sorry I can't do a link as i'm on my phone.

Delia's works

We use this one:

4 oz marg or butter or combination
4 oz sugar, pref soft brown
2 tbsp syrup
2 tbsp treacle
10 oz sr flour
1 teasp ginger
1 teasp mixed spice or half teasp cinnamon and half teasp nutmeg

Oven Gas Mark 5
Warm marg, treacle & syrup in a pan.
Mix dry together in a bowl.
Add warmed mixture to dry ingredients and mix.
Leave for 5 mins.
Roll out on floured board & cut out.
Cook for 5 to 10 mins.

It can be a bit tricky to work with, but I find it hardly spreads at all. This also makes it ideal for gingerbread houses, because the pieces stay the same size. If doing "construction" with it, I used molasses instead of treacle and bake for a little bit longer to make sure it goes really hard.

If you are intending to make them to eat, watch the cooking time. They can easily go to tooth-breaking hardness, so I would take them out at no more than 7 minutes.

Warnings aside, it is really great! And if you do overbake, they are scrummy dunked in a mug of tea .

Thanks all

Ok, so I've made my gingerbread men (using the Delia recipe which is more or less the same as PastGrace's) and the result was:

First batch - quite a lot of spread, although still better than the recipe I normally use (which doesn't involve any heating of ingredients and does include and egg which I think is maybe making it much more spready & cakey)

Second batch from the same dough - much less spread. Kept shape well.

Third batch from the end scraps (it was quite a small cutter) - perfect.

So, I've come to the conclusion that working the dough more might have settled things down a bit, or perhaps a bit more flour. Also I was clearly not rolling them thinly enough with the first batch.

PastGrace - thanks for the tip about cooking times. Delia's recipe says up to 15 mins and if I'd left them that long then they'd have been tooth breakers!