• Cream the butter and 50g of the sugar together until pale and fluffy.
• In a separate bowl, whisk the egg with the remaining 50g of sugar until thick and pale (the ribbon stage).
• Mix the bicarbonate of soda into the golden syrup, then pour into the butter mixture and mix well. Add the egg mixture to the butter mixture and mix again.
• Add the spices, salt, lemon zest and flour and mix thoroughly to form a dough.
• Wrap the dough in clingfilm and place into the fridge to chill for 30 minutes.

Cut out and bake the gingerbread people:

• Preheat the oven to 190°C (conventional oven, not fan).
• Cut the chilled dough in half. On a lightly floured surface, roll half of the dough out to the thickness of a £1 coin.
• Start by cutting out the women. Stamp out the shapes using the cookie cutter, then gently bend the arms inward, pressing down gently where they meet the centre of the cookie to secure them. Carefully transfer to a baking tray, lined with greaseproof paper.
• Bake the gingerbread brides in the preheated oven for 6-8 minutes, until golden. Allow to cool on the tray for 10 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely before decorating.
• Roll out the remaining half of the dough and use to cut out the men, leaving the arms as is this time around. Bake and cool in exactly the same way as the brides.
• Gingerbread people can be made in advance. Store in airtight container until ready to decorate.

Make the royal icing (see Note 5):

• Place the icing sugar, egg white and lemon juice in a large bowl. Whisk with an electric mixer until thick and smooth.

Make the sugar daisies:

• Dust a clean work surface with icing sugar. Roll out the florist paste as thinly as you can, then use the plunge flower cutter to cut out lots of little flowers.
• Tint a small amount of the royal icing using the yellow food colouring, then transfer to a piping bag, fitted with the smallest round tip.
• Pipe a small dot of yellow icing into the centre of each flower, then set aside to dry and harden overnight.

Decorate the gingerbread toppers:

• Place the white royal icing in a piping bag fitted with a piping tip coupler (see Note 2) and a small, round tip.
• Pipe smiley faces on all of the cookies, then a bow tie and three buttons on the grooms. On the brides, add a generous amount of icing to the space between the hands, then gently press three of the dried sugar daisies onto the icing, to form a bouquet.
• Set the gingerbread people aside at room temperature to harden before assembling.

Assemble the gingerbread toppers:

• Place half of the gingerbread people, decorated side down, on some lightly crumpled kitchen paper (this will help to protect the decorated surface).
• Switch out the piping tip on the bag of white royal icing to a slightly larger round tip (see Note 2), then use to pipe a neat outline just inside the perimeter of the shape (don't go too close to the edge, as the icing will squish out a little when you sandwich the cookies).
• Fill inside the outline with more icing, then add one cake pop stick down the centre of the brides and two down each leg (making sure the two sticks are parallel to each other) of the grooms. Gently rotate the sticks to cover them in the icing.
• Gently press another cookie, decorated side up this time, on top of the icing, to make a gingerbread sandwich. Leave the cookies on the kitchen paper overnight (at room temperature) so that the icing sets and hardens.

Attach the toppers to the cake:

• When you're ready to attach the toppers to the cake, line them up on top of the cake and press down just enough to make indents of the cake pop sticks in the buttercream.
• Use a skewer to pierce the cake, using the indents as a guide, then gently push the toppers into the cake, until the gingerbread people are sitting flush with the top of the cake and you can't see the cake pop sticks.