My first baking project was to make my ideal gingerbread people. That means low-cal, so I can eat lots of them, and firey hot, because I like my spicy biscuits properly spicy.

The recipe has been through a number of versions now, and it’s down to 60kcals per biscuit with my cutter, which while not the size you’ll see in the supermarket it still feels like a proper biscuit. As well as being low-cal it’s also low fat (1g fat per biscuit) and more healthful than regular gingerbread in other ways due to using homemade applesauce instead of some of the butter, molases and sweetener instead of some of the sugar, wholemeal flour, and so on.

There are lots of spices in there, some a bit odd, like the mustard powder, but I think they all come together to give a nice depth to the spice. If it’s too much for you, try leaving out the cayenne.

As well as making traditional gingerbread people I’ve also made the dough into xmas twigs, using a double-cooking process, and then making into cute little bundles of kindling.

Recipe, including the how to make the sticks, is here: http://bit.ly/gbreadppl