Ingredients:

• 60 g butter
• 125 g honey
• 50 g sugar
• 1 packet of vanilla sugar
• 1 egg yolk
• 2 knife tips of ground cinnamon
• 2 knife tips of ground nutmeg
• 250 g flour + some flour for rolling out the dough
• 2 level tsp. baking powder
• 1 level tsp. cocoa powder

For decorating:
• 100 g powder sugar
• 1 tbsp. lemon juice
• candied cherries

Honey Gingerbread Cookies

Makes about 16 cookies
Prep time: 40 min. + cooling and drying time

Preparation:

1. Melt the butter in a pan. Put the honey, sugar and vanilla sugar into a mixing bowl, mix in the melted butter and then cool to room temperature.

2. Add the egg yolk and spices and fold into the honey mixture using the whisk attachment on a hand mixer. Sift and blend flour, baking powder and cocoa powder in a bowl, and then fold into the moist ingredients spoon by spoon using the mixer whisk at medium speed. Add the rest and knead into an even dough using your hands.

3. Preheat oven to 170 °C (350° F, upper and lower heat). Roll the dough on a lightly floured work surface out to 1/4” thick and then cut stars or other forms using a cookie cutter. Place the cookies on a cookie sheet lined with baking parchment and put on the second rack in the oven for about 15 min. Remove the finished cookies from the oven and immediately transfer from cookie sheet and to a rack and allow to cool.

4. For the icing, stir powdered sugar and lemon juice with a bit of water until it is very stiff. Make a cone out of parchment paper and fill it with the icing, then cut a tiny hole in the tip using a scissors. Ice the cookies with the powdered sugar mixture and then decorate with candied cherry halves. Allow the icing to dry completely before layering the gingerbread cookies in an air-tight container for storage.