Pre heat your oven to 180ºC/160ºC fan.

Line two large baking sheets with a non-stick sheet/greaseproof paper.

Cut the butter (100g) into cubes and put it into a large bowl with the plain flour (300g). Rub the butter into the flour with your fingertips until it has to consistency of breadcrumbs.

Add the ground ginger (1 tbsp), salt (¼ tsp), light brown sugar (50g) and dark brown sugar (50g) and give the mixture a stir to ensure it's evenly distributed. If there are any lumps of sugar give them a squeeze to break them up.

Add the golden syrup (100g) and 1 medium egg. Use your hands to mix the syrup and egg into the other ingredients until it comes together in a ball. You'll find that there will be some stray dry bits at the bottom of the bowl. Squeeze the dough into the dry bits until it comes together.

Place the dough between two large sheets of cling film and roll it out until it is about ½cm thick.

Use your cutters to cut out festive shapes and carefully peel them off your cling film and place them onto the lined baking sheet. Put them a couple of centimetres apart - they should hold their shape but best to allow for a bit of spread just in case. If you're making tree decorations, don't forget to make a hole large enough for the string to go through.

Bring the remaining dough together into a ball, roll out again and cut-out more shapes. Repeat until you've used all of the dough up.

Put them into the oven and bake for 12-15 minutes.

Carefully lift from the tray and place onto a cooling rack to cool completely before decorating.