Ingredients:

• 60 g butter
• 125 g honey
• 50 g sugar
• 1 sachet vanilla sugar
• 1 egg yolk
• 2 pinches of ground cinnamon
• 2 pinches of ground cloves
• 250 g flour + some flour for the work surface
• 2 level teaspoons baking powder
• 1 level teaspoon cocoa powder

To decorate:
• 100 g icing sugar
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• maraschino cherries as desired

Honey gingerbread

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

Preparation:

1. Melt the butter in a saucepan. Put the honey, sugar and vanilla sugar into a mixing bowl, add the butter and allow to cool to room temperature.

2. Add the egg yolk and spices and stir in using the whisk attachment on an electric hand mixer. Sieve the flour, baking powder and cocoa powder into a bowl, mix and stir in half by the spoonful at medium speed using the whisk attachment on an electric hand mixer. Add the rest and knead with your hands until the dough is homogeneous.

3. Pre-heat the oven to 170 °C (top/bottom heat). Roll out the dough to about 5 mm thick on a lightly floured work surface and cut out stars or other shapes as desired. Put the biscuits on baking trays lined with baking paper and place in the hot oven on the second shelf from below for about 15 minutes. Take the baked gingerbread out of the oven, immediately put the biscuits onto a cooling tray and leave to cool.

4. To decorate, stir the icing sugar with the lemon juice and a little water until the mixture becomes a very stiff cream. Fill the icing sugar cream into a piping bag formed from baking paper, or alternatively fill the cream into a freezer bag and cut a tiny hole in a corner with scissors. Decorate the honey gingerbread with a thin layer of icing sugar cream and cover with halved maraschino cherries. Allow the icing sugar to dry completely before layering the gingerbread in airtight containers for storage.