Ingredients:

3 cups plain flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

226 gm (1 cup) unsalted butter, softened

1 cup granulated sugar

1 large egg, at room temperature

1 tsp vanilla essence

1/2 tsp almond extract (optional)

For Glazing/ Icing:

1/2- 3/4 cup powdered sugar/ icing sugar

1-2 tbsp milk (add according to consistency)

few drops of food colour ( brown and red )

Preparation:

1. Preheat oven to 180 degree celcius. Line baking / cookie sheet with parchment paper/ baking paper.
2. Combine together plain flour, baking powder and salt in a bowl and keep it aside.
3. In a large mixing bowl or in the bowl of your electric mixer, add butter and sugar and beat well until smooth, for about 3 minutes.
4. Add egg, vanilla essence and almond extract and beat well.
5. Add the flour mixture little at a time and beat at low speed until well combined. Then knead by hand to a smooth dough.
6. Divide the dough into 2-3 balls and roll out onto a floured surface and cut into cricket bat and ball shapes. ( I used small round cookie cutters for cricket balls and made a cricket bat shape cardboard template for bat ).

7. Place them on the prepared cookie sheet and bake in the preheated oven for about 8-10 minutes.

8. Remove from the oven and let them cool on the cookie sheet for 3-4 minutes. Then transfer to a wire rack and let them cool completely…

9. To decorate the cookies, add powdered sugar and milk in a bowl and whisk well. Divide icing into different bowls for colouring. Add food colour and mix well. ( I used red icing for balls and marked lines with white icing and for bat, used brown icing for handle ).

10. Pipe icing over cookies and then let it set until very firm...