Ninjabread

"Gee, Brain. What are we going to tonight?" "The same thing we do every night, Pinky. Try to take over the world."

This particular evening I was planning to take the over the world by baking an army of gingerbread ninjas and I started by doubling this recipe from Taste.com. I beat 250g butter with 1 cup of brown sugar until it was creamy, before adding 2 egg yolks and one cup of golden syrup.

After this wet mixture was combined I added five cups of plain flour, 2 tablespoons of ground ginger, 2 teaspoons of mixed spice and 2 teaspoons of bicarbonate soda. Note how ominously full the mixing bowl looks.

After combining all the ingredients, I lightly kneaded the mixture until it started to form a dough. I then placed the cling wrapped bowl into the fridge for half an hour.

At this stage you should preheat your oven to 180°C. After chilling you dough you can roll it to a 4mm thickness and cut with your favourite cutters. The shapes should be baked in the oven for 10 minutes and then set aside to cool. This photo looks a tad like a crime scene ...

Make the icing by beating the remaining egg whites until stiff and adding two cups of pure icing sugar. Pictured is my favourite icing tool, the Cuisipro Decorating Pen. It gives much better control then a piping bag for an intricate job like this one.

Here are my little ninjas all iced and waiting to set. I can taste world domination already ...

Unfortunately my ninja army was foiled by cellophane, organza ribbons and these adorable little tags by Luvs2create2. Sighs ... I always thought by 21 I would have least conquered my first small tropical nation ... ah well ... there is always another night!