I'll admit it; I don't cook much - BUT - I always cook these amazing, tasty but super-easy to make Ginger biscuits whenever there's a special occasion. And, believe me - everyone loves them!

This is a very old family recipe which we've had for as long as i can remember.

Its just been Christmas, and we had quite a few visitors around, so the cutters i used were Christmas shapes.

WARNING: These biscuits are extremely addictive and nice tasting.

Step 1: Ingredients

This recipe makes about 100 Biscuits, which is quite a lot. Put in proportion, It fills up an entire Quality street tin to the brim, and there are still a few extras. You can cut the quantities to how many you want. But if you do decide to make 100, I'm sure you'll like them so much you'll eat them all :D!

Ingredients:

500g plain flour

2 level teaspoons of baking powder

250g caster sugar

100g of ground almonds

Vanilla sugar or vanilla essence (As many drops as you want (I use about 5 drops vanilla essence))

2 knife tips of ground cardamom

2 knife tips of ground nutmeg

1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon

Couple of drops of bitter almond essence (This might be a little hard to find, I normally get it from Sainsbury's, they stock this)

200g of butter

2 eggs

Preheat oven to 160C fan.

Step 2: Mixing Ingredients

Set out all the ingredients on a table, and get a big mixing Bowl.

Take all of the dry ingredients and add them into the bowl. Start with the flower and baking powder, and mix these up with a wooden spoon. Then add the sugar, and mix these too. Keep going, and add all the ground almonds, cardamom, nutmeg & cinnamon. Mix these up .
Now start to add the remaining ingredients (Vanilla essence, almond essence and butter). Add the eggs last, and mix everything into the eggs using a fork.
Once everything is mixed in start to knead the mixture together. Knead throughly so the butter is properly mixed with the other ingredients.
If it starts to become Too sticky at this stage, you can put it in the fridge for about 10-15 minutes to make life easier!
Once its all mixed together nicely, lightly flour a work surface & a rolling pin to stop it sticking. Then roll it out so its about ½ cm thick. Remember ½ cm thick is quite thin, so make sure you roll it out well.

Step 3: Cut Out & Bake!

6.To cut out the shapes, use cookie cutters. I bought a set of Christmas Cutters a couple of years ago, for about £2.99 at my local pound store.
You could also make round biscuits using a coffee cup by pressing it into the dough and use a blunt table knife to lightly cut around the edge.
7.Then lay them out on a greased baking tray - (Or you could use some Greaseproof Paper). Making 100 Cookies uses up about 5 Baking trays, but I baked them in groups of 2, so i only had to get out 2 trays
8. You want to cook for 10-13 minutes in a fan oven at 160 degrees. You can tell when they are right as they should be Golden but not dark.

Step 4: Cooldown!

9. Leave to cool on a wire rack (About 10 Minutes)

As you can see, this recipe makes over 100 Biscuits, which is about a full to the brim tin of quality street, with some left over.

These are great to make if you have guests coming over. There's no chocolate or icing on them, so they are healthier than most normal biscuits.

Eat on their own, or with a glass of milk, or cup of tea/coffee.

Enjoy!