Recipe by: me, icing recipe (and design) by Allrecipes.com Busy:45 min, Total prep time: 1h30 min Serves: Makes about 20 medium cookies

Make the cookies:

Preheat oven to 180 degrees C.

Pour the flower into a large mixing bowl, and with a wooden spatula make a hole in the middle.

Place in the hole the softened butter cut into chunks, sugar, egg white and finely chopped lemon zest, and mix until obtaining a homogeneous dough.

Roll into a ball, cover with cling film or a tea towel and allow to rest in the fridge for 30 minutes.

Using a rolling pin, roll the dough down to a few mm on a flat floured surface and cut cookies using an inverted glass or cookie cutters. Reshape leftover dough into a ball and roll it back down to cut more cookies.

Bake for 12-14 minutes or until lightly browned.

Prepare the icing:

In a small bowl, stir together confectioners' sugar and milk until smooth. Beat in corn syrup and almond extract until icing is smooth and glossy. If the icing is too thick, add a bit more corn syrup.

Divide into separate bowls, and add food colorings to each to desired intensity. Paint the cookies with a brush.

If piping decorations on top of the base icing, prepare a second batch of thicker icing and place at the bottom corner of a small freezing bag. Carefully make a tiny cut in the bag corner and pipe the icing through.

Wait at least 20 minutes before piping icing onto the base icing.

Allow the cookies to dry overnight before storing them. The icing will dry into a shiny, hard surface, which is great for stacking the cookies together.