"Kondensmelkkoekies"

This recipe makes about 90 cookies. They are easy to make and you can get your kids to help you cut the cookies and decorate them. 

FYI:
The temperature of the ingredients has a lot to do with how the cookies turn out. If you put a warm, melty dough into the oven, your cookies will spread before they begin to set up. Too often they'll run into one another, becoming a single crisp, crunchy mess on your cookie sheet. The cooler the dough when it goes into the oven, the less it will spread. (http://www.ochef.com)

The Cookies
What you need:

450g           butter (not marg it's just not that nice)

1 cup           castor sugar

1t                 vanilla essence

1 tin             condensed milk

5 cups         cake flour

4t                 baking powder

½ t              salt

Heat the oven to 180°C

Cream the butter and the castor sugar together
Then add the vanilla and condensed milk and mix well

Sift the flour, baking powder, and the salt

Then mix with the butter mixture until it forms smooth dough

With your hands form dough into a ball and cover with plastic
Put the dough in the fridge for about 30min or more

First remove half of the dough and roll out, leaving the rest of the dough in the fridge till you are done with the first half

Cut out different forms and place on baking tray

Bake for about 8 min or till golden brown

Put on cooling racks and allow to cool down

Now for the fun part :-) here you must use your imagination and enjoy.

The icing

What you need:

2            egg whites (room temperature)

500g     icing sugar sifted (you will only need some of it)

1t           lemon juice

Combine the egg whites and the lemon juice in a bowl

Add some of the sifted icing sugar to the eggs and start the mixer

Keep adding icing sugar little at a time

When you can pull out small stiff peaks of icing it’s ready

Cover icing with cling wrap or wet cloth and put it in the fridge till you use it

If you want to make runny icing to flood the cookies add a drop of water and mix till you get thinner liquid  (if full of bubbles allow to rest for a few minutes)

This icing is called "royal icing" and hardens up after it's dried, and looks very nice!