Ginger and cinnamon spice cookies

Do you remember me saying I had over 50 recipes to put on the blog? Ho ho. Those were the young, naive days. That number has increased to over 100. Hmm... we'll see if I can get around to all that. ANYHOO, this was one of those recipes (1 down, 99+ to go!). We got this cookie press from our lovely aunty in Australia (thank you, Helen!) and I personally have never seen one in the UK. (Maybe I haven't been looking hard enough. Not the sort of thing that crosses your mind on your daily shop). One of the many reasons it's fantastic is the fact that it makes so many (48+) so it's great for cake sales, or street parties like I made them for. Probably a few too many to just eat at home... though you'll be surprised: over half will be gone before they're even cooled....

Spice cookies
Prep time: 15 minutes
Serves: 48
Cooking temp: Gas 3, 170C
Cooking time: 12 minutes

Ingredients
230g butter, at room temperature
3/4 cup brown granulated sugar
1 egg
1.5 tsp ground ginger
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground cloves
2.5 cups of plain white flour
1 tbsp water

Method

1. Preheat the oven.
2. Beat together the butter and sugar until creamy.
   
3. Add the egg, spices and water and mix well. Fold in the flour with a wooden spoon.
   
4. W/cookie press: pack into the press and stamp out onto a cold, ungreased baking sheet, spacing the cookies 2cm apart. You made need to make more than one batch.
   
5. Without (admittedly, most people): cut cookie shapes that are about 2 mm thick and 5cm long. Or, make them thicker and cook for longer.
6. Bake for 12 minutes. Slide the cookies off with a palette knife and decorate if desired (using your press, handily!) Here are just some of the designs my press can make: