Excitable Edgar gingerbread biscuits

1. To make the gingerbread, melt the butter, sugar and syrup in a medium saucepan, stirring occasionally, then remove from the heat.

2. Sieve the flour, bicarbonate of soda and ginger into a bowl and stir the melted ingredients into the dry ingredients to make a stiff dough. Cover loosely and set aside to cool for 30 minutes.

3. Preheat the oven to 170°C, gas mark 3. Line 3 large baking trays with baking parchment. Use the template for the biscuit below.

4. Lightly dust the work surface with flour and roll the gingerbread dough to 3-4mm thick. Lay the template on the dough and cut around it using a small, sharp knife to make as many shapes as you can. Arrange the gingerbread shapes on the prepared baking sheets, gather the dough scraps together, roll out again and cut out more shapes. Bake, in batches, for 9-10 minutes until light golden, then cool completely on wire racks.

5. To decorate, sift the royal icing sugar into a bowl and add cold water 1 tbsp at a time until it is thick and smooth (about 5-6 tbsp) – it should hold a ribbon trail when the whisk is lifted from the bowl. Take 1½ tbsp of icing and transfer to another bowl, another 1½ tbsp into another bowl and a further 1½ tbsp into a third bowl. Using the food colouring paste tint one bowl black, one yellow and the other dark green. Spoon each coloured icing into separate piping bags. Scoop a further 2 tbsp of white icing into another piping bag.

6. Tint the large bowl of icing a slightly paler shade of green and scoop 1 tbsp into the fifth piping bag. Snip the end into a fine point and using the template as a reference, pipe a neat, continuous line around the outside of each biscuit, excluding the horns, ears and bump on the head. Cover the remaining green icing until ready to use.

7. Snip the ends of the yellow and black piping bags into fine writing points and pipe yellow eyes onto each biscuit and a black outline for the mouth. Using the white icing, pipe outlines for the horns. Leave to dry for 30 minutes.

8. Add a little more water to the large bowl of green icing – it should no longer hold a ribbon trail. Carefully spoon icing onto the gingerbread within the outline being careful not to cover the mouth and eyes. Use a round bladed knife or teaspoon to smooth the icing and to flood the shapes evenly. Leave to dry for another 30 minutes. Meanwhile, pipe darker green ears and bump on top of the head on each biscuit.

9. Pipe a black pupil on each eye, two nostrils and fill in the mouth with black icing. Using scissors cut the micro marshmallows in half diagonally to make little triangular teeth shapes and press into the mouth. Finally pipe a small white dot on each eye. Leave the icing to set and harden before serving.