It's that time of the year when we all let the Gingerbread Men armies rise! These exquisite cookies are filled with festive flavours: hot, sweet and warm ginger, bursting with aroma cinnamon, woody and perfumed vanilla, nutty, almost spicy nutmeg. What a joy for both kids and adults!

Ingredients for around 30 cookies:

• 200 gr. room temperature butter (very important to be room temp)
• 50 gr. caster sugar
• 5 gr. cinnamon 
• 5 gr. ginger powder
• 1/2 piece freshly ground nutmeg
• beans from one vanilla pod/1 tsp. vanilla essence 
• 350 gr. flour
• pinch of salt
• 120 gr. liquid honey

For the glaze:

• 1 egg white
• 50 gr. powder sugar

Method:

1. Put the butter at room temperature in a large bowl. Mix it to soften with a hand mixer for 1-2 min.
2. Add the sugar and continue mixing for another 1-2 min.
3. Add to the butter mix the cinnamon, ginger powder, ground nutmeg and vanilla and continue mixing for a few seconds.
4. Put half of the flour to the butter mixture and incorporate by using slow speed hand mixer. Add the other half and pinch of salt and continue mixing for a few seconds. Don't be afraid if you see the batter is crumbly, it should look this way. 
5. At this point, put the bowl with the butter and flour mixture on a kitchen scale and pour 120 gr. of honey. I prefer to weight the honey directly over the mixture because if I weight it in another bowl and then transfer it to the gingerbread composition, I will lose important grams. 
6. With the hand mixer, mix for 1 more minute. Transfer the batter on your kitchen worktop. The consistency should still be crumbly. Shape it into a ball and dust your working surface with flour. Using a rolling pin, roll the batter into a 2 mm thick sheet. Many online recipes will suggest to refrigerate the batter before rolling but I find the best results if the batter is at room temperature, preferably to roll it right after you finished mixing all the ingredients.
7. Heat oven at 150'C.
8. Using a gingerbread man cutter, cut the batter and transfer each cookie into a baking tray lined with parchment paper. Take the leftover batter, make a ball, roll again and cut more cookies until you finish all your batter.
9. Bake in the hot oven for 25 to 30 min. 
10. Meanwhile, prepare the glaze for decorating the gingerbread men: beat one egg white until foam and add 50 gr. powder sugar, mixing with a whisk. Transfer the glaze into a pipping bag and cut the end by letting just a small hole for the glaze to come out. 
11. Take the cookies out of the oven and leave to cool completely before decorating them. Using the pipping bag, decorate the gingerbread men as you imagine and enjoy these delicious cookies with hot cocoa, orange and apple festive tea or a glass of wine!