Christmas Cookie Tree

I thought I had better Christmas up my blog by sharing a festive post that I created for Center Parcs.

These are the gorgeous festive cookies I made last year. They fill the house with an amazing Christmassy scent, especially if you make a batch of them into a Christmas tree like this:

I used a polystyrene cone and hot glued gunned the cookies all over. Yes it makes them inedible, but it looked so pretty and smelled so good all through Christmas. Of course I made an extra batch for snacking and some to hang on the tree.

It is amazing to see how many people subscribed to Thingswemake over the years and though I feel odd that I don’t update it often anymore I feel that people have moved on to new platforms (mostly microblogging on Instagram etc) It’s nice to drop in from time to time though to share something of what I do. It’s useful for me to see my recipes when I need them too!

If you’d like to see what I am up to now, still making and photographing food, and laser cutting stuff too, come say hello on Instagram: ClaireFirstLightWorks

Here is my recipe if you would like to give them a try, and if you click on this link to my Facebook page there is a bonus video of me making them!

Christmas Cookies

Ingredients

• 110g Butter
• 110g Soft brown sugar
• 8 Tbsp Runny Honey
• 1 Egg
• 450g Plain Flour
• 1tsp Baking Powder
• 2 tsp Ground Ginger
• 2 tsp Cinnamon
• 1 tsp Mixed Spice
• 2 Tbsp Cocoa Powder

For  the icing

• 150 g Icing Sugar
• 1 tablespoon Water
• Optional silver/coloured balls

1. Pre heat the oven to 180ªC and lightly grease 4 baking trays with butter (or just bake half a batch at a time)
2. Melt the butter with the soft brown sugar and runny honey in a small pan. When the butter has melted allow the mixture to cool a little.
3. Sift the rest of the dry ingredients together into a large bowl and stir.
4. Add the egg and mix again.
5. Pour the melted butter mixture into the dry ingredients and mix until the dough comes together.
6. Tip the mixture out onto a board and knead it into a ball of dough, add water if it is too dry.
7. You can refrigerate some dough at this point if you want to make some of the cookies at a later date.
8. Sprinkle the worktop with a little flour and roll out the dough, slightly thicker than a pound coin. 
9. Cut out shapes using cookie cutters, making holes with a skewer if you plan to hang your cookies, then place them on the greased trays. 
10. Bake for 7-8 minutes until they are just starting to brown at the edges.
11. Allow them to cool on the tray for 2 minutes then lift onto a cooling rack with a spatula.
12. Make the icing by stirring the water into the sifted icing sugar to make a thick paste. 
13. Use a piping bag fitted with the smallest nozzle to pipe snowflake and star shapes onto the cooled cookies.

The cookies are crisp to start with but when stored in a tin they soften a little. 

They will keep for a couple of weeks, or you can hang them on your tree for the rest of the festive season!

Merry Christmas all!

From Claire