MAKES 10-12

Ingredients

For the cookies:
100g/4oz caster sugar
100g/4oz softened butter, plus more for greasing the tray
1 free-range egg, beaten
2 drops vanilla essence
225g/8oz plain flour, plus more for dusting

For the icing:
200g/7oz icing sugar
Black food colouring
Orange food colouring

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Preheat the oven to 190°C/ 375°F/ gas mark 5. Put the sugar and butter in a large mixing bowl and beat together until creamy.

Add the egg and vanilla essence and keep beating until the mixture is smooth. Now stir in the flour, a little at a time, until you have a smooth dough.

Dust the chopping board and rolling pin with a little flour and roll the dough out until it’s about 5mm/ 1/4 in thick; dust with more flour if it sticks to the board.

Butter a baking tray or Swiss roll tin. Then use a cookie cutter to cut out the cookies. Put the cookies on the baking tray or Swiss roll tin. If there are bits left over, bake them too, and you can eat them later as a treat for your hard work!

Put the baking tray or Swiss roll tin in the middle of the oven and bake for 10 minutes. Transfer them to a wire rack to cool.

To make the icing, sift the icing sugar into a bowl and add a tablespoon of water. Mix with a wooden or a plastic spoon.

Take 3 tablespoons of the icing and put it in a small bowl. Add a few drops of orange food colouring to make it bright orange. Add black food colouring to the rest of the icing.

Spread the black icing over the cookies with a palette knife. Put the orange icing in a piping bag or a freezer bag with the corner snipped off. Draw lines down the wings and make little dots for eyes.

Extras
You can easily use the same cookie mixture for Christmas cookies. Use a Christmas tree cookie cutter to get the right shape and spread the cookie with green icing. Dot with white icing for the tree decorations.