Gingerbread Cookies

For the dough:

120 g butter at room temperature (1/2 cup)
100 g (1/2 cup) of unrefined dark cane sugar (for example, Muscovado). Very dark brown sugar can be changed with other kind lighter brown sugar.
1 egg
1 / 2 teaspoon of salt
1 teaspoon of ground dried ginger
1 teaspoon of ground nutmeg
1 tsp of ground cinnamon
1 / 2 teaspoon of ground cloves
5-6 cardamom pods (remove the seeds and ground them  to the powder)
9 tablespoons of sugarcane molasses (whole or part amount of molasses can be changed with liquid honey)
1 teaspoon of baking powder
about 500 g (about 4 cups) of all purpose plain flour

For the glaze:

100 g of icing sugar (1 cup)
100 g (1 cup) of powdered meringue (if you can not find this powder, you can bake meringues by yourself or to buy already baked ones in the shop and then to ground them into the powder)
2-3 tablespoons of water (for the colored icing, water can be changed with the juice or edible dyes solution)
to taste of lemon juice (no need if you use other kind of juice)
For the decoration:colorful sprinkles

Make the cookies:

Stir the room temperature butter with the sugar and salt until fluffy.
Add the egg and molasses and beat until the batter is light.
Add all the spices.
In a separate bowl, mix the flour with the baking powder. Then add this mixture into the batter.
Work the dough until it is homogeneous and elastic.
Make a ball, wrap it into the plastic foil and place into the refrigerator for about an hour, until the dough is cool.
Preheat oven to 180 º C temperature.
Sprinkle some flour on the table, roll the dough, cut-out the cookies and bake them in the oven for 5-7 minutes.

Prepare the glaze:

Mix icing sugar with powdered meringues, add liquid (water, juice, or edible dye's solution), add the lemon juice and stir until homogeneous. The easiest way to decorate: to use the baker's bag. The cookies can be adorned with any different shape and color sprinkles.
Enjoy this creative time !

I have been baking Gingerbread  cookies every Christmas. With so many recipes to choose, I always adapt the one which is simple and easy to work with.So this year I choose to try a new recipe from this wonderful blog :  http://www.isbandytireceptai.com/2010/12/kalediniai-imbieriniai-sausainiai-su.html    

 It's a perfect Christmas tree decoration and wonderful gift to your friends and family.You can involve your kids too, and the best part for the kids is blowing the dough out of drinking straw :)
( Use the drinking straw to cut the little holes for hanging cookies and ask your kids to blow out the dough, they love it ! )  xxxxx