Another Christmas tradition – spicy biscuits cut into Christmas shapes.  My husband loves these and so far I have never made them as well as his mother. (He likes to play with fire.)  Lots of other people love them though and they can be fun to make with the kids.  This is another activity you can freeze from any time now.  Divide the dough in half and freeze the dough.  Or roll out, cut the biscuits and freeze the uncooked cookies.  Then bring them out and bake. You can even freeze the baked biscuits so up to you and your schedule. Baking can be creative but cleaning up can be an added stress in an already stressed out season so freezing the biscuits  now will save that hassle.  Arrange children around the table with little bowls of different coloured icing and anything else you have to decorate with.  Ice in one colour and then pipe decorations on top or just use sprinkles.  We love them spliced together with a good plum or berry jam.  They will keep in an airtight container for a couple of days.   I would suggest you double this recipe to make enough cookies for a family gathering.

Set oven to 180C

• 125g Butter softened
• 75g Brown Sugar
• 1 Tsp each of cinnamon, mixed spice and Ground Ginger
• Cream butter, sugar and spice together until light and fluffy
• Add 1 egg and beat well.
• Sift 225g flour with 1 tsp baking powder
• Add and mix until well combined.
• Put onto floured surface and knead until the dough comes together nicely. If too sticky add a little flour.
• Divide into 2 batches. Roll out the first batch to about 3 mm thick.  Cut out biscuits using your cookie cutters. Put onto greased trays and cook for 10 mins or so at 180C.
• When cook, stick together with jam. Plum or berry is a favourite. Then ice.

Icing.

Butter icing for covering biscuits.

• 50g butter melted.
• Add tiny drop of vanilla essence.
• Sift 2 cups of icing sugar and add along with enough hot water to make a smooth mix.  Add only a few drops of hot water at a time.
• Divide up into smaller bowls if you are want different colours and add food colouring to each batch.

Royal Icing for Piping. (an option)

• 2 egg whites
• 2 cups sifted icing sugar
• Squeeze of lemon juice.
• Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form. Add lemon juice then icing sugar a little at a time until smoothly combined. This will make your basic white icing. If you want to make smaller batches of coloured, divide in two and add food colouring to each batch as needed.