I haven’t been baking this month! At all! Usually during the pre-Christmas period my oven never gets a rest and the flat is filled with tins and tins of cookies, cakes and experimental festive baked goods. But this year’s been pretty bad.
This December my life suddenly got caught up in a snow storm – not a pretty one with nice big flakes, but a real bad-ass storm. Not fun. So, I had and still have to deal with that first. On top of it all I had to move flat again – for the 10th time in 8 years! I can tell you, I’ve had enough!
So, I haven’t been baking. At all. Thankfully I’d made these cookies at the end of November, full of optimism and looking forward to the festive period… So here you go, enjoy them. I’ll try and be good in the new year and be again the fabulous baking queen you’re used to! ★
Spiced Cookies
Makes about 40
200g butter
2 tbsp golden syrup
140g sugar
1 egg yolk
280g flour, plus extra for dusting
3 tsp cinnamon
1 1/2 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
1/2 tsp powdered cloves
1 tsp powdered ginger
1/2 tsp salt
2 tbsp powdered walnuts
Royal Icing
1-2 tbsp tepid water
1 tsp merri white (powdered egg white)
200g icing sugar
For the cookie dough, mix the butter, golden syrup and sugar in a big bowl. Add the egg and beat until you have a smooth mixture.
In a separate bowl, mix the flour, spices, salt and walnuts. Gradually add to the butter mixture and mix until you get a nice smooth dough.
Roll the dough into a ball, cover in cling film and let it rest in the fridge for 1 hour.
Preheat the oven to 190° celsius.
Take the dough out of the fridge and roll out on a floured surface to the thickness of a pound coin. Cut out with star-shaped cookie cutters and put onto a baking sheet.
Bake in the preheated oven for 10-15 minutes or until golden brown. Transfer onto a wire rack and let cool completely.
For the royal icing, slowly mix the water and the merri white, until you have a smooth mixture without too many bubbles.
In batches, sieve the icing sugar into the merri white mixture and mix with a handmixer set on the lowest level. You should get a nice stiff royal icing, add water if it’s too stiff. You can cover the surface of the royal icing with cling film and keep it in the fridge for 3 days.
Put the royal icing into a piping bag and decorate the cookies in various nice patterns.
So pretty and delicious looking! A wonderful gift.
Cheers,
Rosa
Beautifully presented and boxed. Homemade edible gifts are the best!
I like the black background of the pics.
Nisrine
I love Spiced Cookies – but those are almost too pretty to eat! Today is officially the first day of Winter, and I am already begging for Spring. Although being stuck inside to avoid cold and heat would be much easier with a box of those beautiful Spiced Cookies!
Ok, so that should have been “cold and snow” NOT “cold and heat”. Good grief – I need more caffeine this morning.
Ha, I got ya! Coffee is my morning saviour! Happy Christmas Eve to you!
Thanks for shared great recipe information with us. Really amazing cookies. Good one.
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Ha, thank you, that is very sweet! Has the awful April weather inspired you to look up Xmas cookies?
It’s a nice post.
Umm…. mid making these biscuits but bit worried I’ve used too much spice… :-S …. is it really tablespoons or is it a mistake for the cinammon, ginger and the nutmeg?
Hi, it is actually tablespoons, these cookies have a real spice kick, which might taste like too much in the raw dough – don’t worry though, once you’ve baked them it will all taste harmoniously! (I hope you like them!)
Umm… actually in the end it was seriously too much!… and they were so much darker than the colour of yours! I don’t know why,… and it was quite sort of… wet to roll out. Anyway, we cooked a bit and they were really strong and a bit bitter… I am in Brazil, so perhaps the spices are stronger and therefore…?!… we ended up adding more times the rest of the ingredients, and now we have tons of them!!… We did like them, but had to adjust… perhaps i measured them somewhat carelessly :-S anyway, thanks for responding, I only realised that this is a very old post!
x
Oh man I´m really sorry to hear that. Maybe my tablespoons were smaller (1 tbsp is 2 tsp)? I´m going to slightly adjust the recipe now, and make it teaspoons – and I´ll test it myself again. You have a nice xmas!
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