The cookie was tasty and the texture actually got better with time!  It reminded me a little of the Biscoff cookies except not as sweet.  However, I thought that if it were a little more "spicy",  it would make it more flavorful.  So I decided to tweak the recipe.

In the original recipe, it called for adding the ingredients of a tablespoon of chai tea as the chai spice.  I decided that using the "raw" ingredients and blending it fresh would add to the spiciness.   So, I have 3 levels of spiciness in the recipe! I also added sourdough discards in one batch and incorporated the sourdough technique with a long resting period.  Based on the appearance of the baked sourdough cookie, I believe that this technique would make the cookie more nutritious, although I cannot prove that without taking it to a science lab. Adding the sourdough also made the cookies rise more. 

Tips.

Chai.

This recipe calls for 3 teaspoons of Chai.  If you don't have whole cloves, cardamom, black pepper or cinnamon in the pantry, you can either substitute it with the ingredients in a chai teabag or use ground spices.  When using the ingredients in a teabag and your teabag contains black tea, measure out 4 teaspoons of chai tea.  

If you have whole cloves, cardamom, black pepper or cinnamon, the best way to blend this into a fine powder is to use a coffee grinder.  Otherwise, you can substitute the whole spices with ground spices.

Hand or mixer?

You can make this recipe either by hand or mixer.  The dough is a lot softer when using a mixer.  However, after refrigeration, the dough can be rolled out and shaped with cookie cutters.  After making the dough, spoon the dough onto plastic wrap.  It may be too soft to shape into a flat square / rectangle.  If so, just wrap tightly with plastic wrap and then flatten to make it fairly uniform.

Getting consistent thickness

For thicker gingerbread cookies, the dough should be rolled to 1/4"  or 6 mm thickness.  For thinner, crispier cookies, the dough should be rolled to 1/8"  of 3 mm thickness.  I discovered that FREE paint sticks are excellent tools to get your dough thickness uniform.  One gallon paint sticks are 1/8" and five gallon paint sticks are 1/4" thick. Most hardware stores that sell paint will give these away for free!

Rolling out the dough.

Prevent cookie dough from sticking.

It is a lot easier to roll out the dough between 2 sheets of parchment paper.  The parchment paper prevents the dough from sticking to the work surface and your rolling pin.  It also makes it easier to remove the cookie when transferring it onto the cookie sheet.

Place the sticks on either side of the dough, place the parchment paper on the top and roll along the sticks until the rolling pin reaches the height of the sticks.  This will result in straight and uniform cookie dough.

The cookies do expand slightly, especially if you add sourdough discards.  Cool the cookie completely before frosting.

Royal icing.

When making royal icing, beat your egg white until they form soft peaks on medium low speed before adding your powdered sugar. Your icing should be fairly thick.

Applying the icing.

Use royal icing to decorate your cookies.  I usually use it sparingly as it is very sweet and the entire cookie does not have to be lathered in icing!  See this helpful tip and trick on frosting cookies without a piping bag.

Enjoy!