Spicy Christmas Biscuits

Before baking

After baking - dusted with icing sugar

Oven: 180 deg. C

Ingredients:
120g (just over 4ozs.) butter
1/2 cup light brown soft sugar
1/2 cup of treacle (pour boiling water into the cup first to make the treacle easier to slide out)
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp. ground ginger
1/4 tsp ground cloves or mixed spice
1 egg 1 tsp. vanilla
2 cups of plain flour
1 tsp. baking powder

Makes approx. 24 small bix.

1. Melt the butter, brown sugar, treacle and spices in a saucepan over a low/medium heat - set aside.

2. Mix the beaten eggs and vanilla together. Add to the slightly cooled butter mix.

3. Stir in the flour and baking powder and mix until smooth. Make up the dough, which is fairly loose, and refrigerate for at least 2 hours (or longer) by which time it will have thickened.

Either roll into small balls, press lightly down and bake for approx. 6-9 mins. - depending on your oven.
When they are done, they should just be 'set and firm' to the touch. They flatten out very slightly but dont spread too much.
OR
Roll out between two sheets of greaseproof paper (baking parchment) and cut into shapes.
Make a hole in the top (to hang them), before baking.

Carefully remove them from the baking sheet while still warm.


Decorate with Royal Icing:
2 egg whites
450g icing sugar
1/2 tbl. lemon or lime juice
1 tsp glycerine (not essential addition - just stops the icing from going too hard)

Mix all the ingredients together and use as piped decoration.
This can also be coloured with food colouring.

Idea: you could pipe one letter on each biscuit spelling out Happy Christmas and hang this up as a decoration!