These are the original ingredients, I didn't change much but I believe the best version of these cookies were the ones I made last year at my boyfriend's house. There was no unsalted butter so I used salted (lactose-free) butter, now this could be dangerous considering every butter will vary in salt content, the one I used was particularly salty and I still loved the result, the cookies disappeared in a matter of a few hours. If you're afraid of over-salting the cookies, use unsalted butter and use salt to your own taste. As for brown sugar, I find it quite expensive and most people in my country don't have it at home, instead I usually use light brown sugar, a lot more affordable and easy to find but with a great molasses content, which is what you're looking for here. As for golden syrup, it is almost impossible to find where I live, and when you do find it it costs a fortune so on my first year baking these cookies I substituted it for a simple yet traditional quince jelly, which has a very similar consistency, but last year I used honey instead using only 4 tablespoons as I feel they would be too sickly otherwise. I feel as though the overly sweetness of the honey works really well with the saltiness of the butter, creating a nice yet intriguing balance. I believe I also added some cinnamon which made the cookies really stand out, I haven't this year yet, but you bet my second batch will be filled with cinnamon goodness, if you want to add some too just add around 2 teaspoons to the dry mix when sieving and you'll be good to go.

Preheat your oven to 170ºC and melt the butter, honey/golden syrup and sugar in a pan on low heat until the sugar is dissolved. Remove from the heat and let it cool for a while. Sieve the flour, bicarb and ginger and beat in the wet mixture, until a dough forms which happens quite quickly it should be soft, malleable and it shouldn't be sticky, you should actually be left with a clean bowl. At this point let it cool completely.

Lightly dust a work surface with flour and roll your dough until it reaches a thickness of around 1 cm, I sometimes make them a little bit thinner, but you do you. This year I made them all different thicknesses as my mum likes them a wee bit thinner, almost like a cracker, and I left those in the oven for around 4-5 minutes , as for the thicker ones, a lot fluffier and crumblier, I left them in the oven for around 9-10 minutes. Making them different thicknesses also means you'll get different amounts of cookies, the original recipe says it makes 12 cookies while I made almost 50, which is a huge difference.

Cut your shapes, ideally all close to the same size so they all bake at the same time, and bake them on a non-stick baking tray. There's no need to leave too much space between them as they won't spread. unless you've added cinnamon don't expect them to be dark and gold, mine did get a bit golden around the edges because my oven is a bit temperamental, but they should still be pale and soft when you remove them from the oven, hardening as they cool.

Let them cool completely before decorating or leave them as they are, they'll be amazing no matter what, at least this is my excuse not to decorate them as I suck at piping icing, but nobody needs to know that.