Magical Sparkling Snowflakes Christmas Butter Biscuits Cookies Food

SPARKLING VANILLA CHRISTMAS COOKIES

Steps:

• Tip the icing sugar, vanilla extract, egg yolk and butter into a mixing bowl, then stir together with a wooden spoon (or pulse in a food processor until well combined). Add the flour and mix to a firm dough. Shape the dough into two flat discs and wrap them. Chill for 20-30 mins. Heat oven to 190C/fan 170C/gas 5 and line two baking sheets with non-stick baking paper.
• Roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface to about the thickness of two £1 coins. Cut out Christmassy shapes (use a cutter if you like) and place on the baking sheets. Using the tip of a skewer, cut a small hole in the top of each cookie. Bake for 10-12 mins until lightly golden.
• Lift the biscuits onto a wire rack to cool. Meanwhile, mix the icing sugar with a few drops of cold water to make a thick, but still runny icing. Colour with edible food colouring, if you like. Spread it over the cooled biscuits, decorate with edible balls and thread with ribbon when dry.

BUTTER SNOW FLAKES

Steps:

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Sift together the flour, salt, and cinnamon; set aside.
• In a medium bowl, cream together butter and cream cheese. Add sugar and egg yolk; beat until light and fluffy. Stir in the vanilla and orange zest. Gradually blend in the dry ingredients. Fill a cookie press or pastry bag with dough, and form cookies on an ungreased cookie sheet.
• Bake for 12 to 15 minutes in the preheated oven, or until the cookies are golden brown on the peaks and on the bottoms. Remove from cookie sheets at once to cool on wire racks.

MAGICAL SPARKLING SNOWFLAKES: CHRISTMAS BUTTER BISCUITS-COOKIES

Steps:

• Place flour and the icing sugar in a food processor. Process for 30 seconds. Add butter. Process until mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Add egg and vanilla. Process until dough comes together. If it is too dry, add some milk.
• Transfer to a lightly floured surface. Knead dough until smooth. Press or roll into a 9"/20cm circle. Wrap in greaseproof paper. Refrigerate for 1 hour or until firm.
• Preheat oven to 180C/360F, and line 2 flat baking/cookie trays with baking paper. Roll out dough between 2 sheets of baking paper until about 1/4"/5mm thick.
• Using snowflake biscuit/cookie cutters, cut shapes out of dough. Place on them gently on to the trays. Press leftover dough together and repeat cutting out shapes. Refrigerate for 30 minutes or until firm.
• Bake the cookies/biscuits for 10 minutes, swapping trays after 5 minutes, or until light golden in colour. Allow to cool on trays completely.
• Pipe trellis-work patterns following the snowflake shapes, or drizzle glace icing over the top; then dust them with edible glitter/edible silver dusting powder whilst the icing is still wet.
• Dust with remaining sugar or edible glitter/silver dust just before serving.
• Note for making holes for hanging on the Christmas Tree: Just before baking, take a plastic drinking straw and press into the top of the snowflake shapes - to make a small hole - then gently wiggle the straw around a bit to widen the hole, and bake as before. On taking them out of the oven, if the holes have closed up a bit, gently wiggle around again with a plastic drinking straw, to make the holes bigger! Excuse the language, I don't know how else to put it! LOL!

SNOWFLAKE BISCUITS

Steps:

• Heat oven to 200C/180C fan/gas 6 and line a baking sheet with baking parchment. Put the butter in a bowl and beat it with electric beaters until soft and creamy. Beat in the sugar, then the egg and vanilla, and finally the flour to make a dough. If the dough feels sticky, add a little flour and knead it in. Chill for 20 mins in the fridge.
• Roll the dough to about the thickness of a £1 coin on a lightly floured surface. Cut out snowflake shapes using a biscuit cutter, then re-roll the off-cuts and repeat.
• Bake for 8-10 mins or until the edges are just beginning to brown. Leave to cool for 5 mins before trying to move them. Cool completely.
• Roll out the fondant icing to the thickness of a 50p piece. Use the same cutter to stamp out the icing. If you have smaller cutter you can stamp out holes in the middles of some of them. Brush each biscuit with a tiny amount of honey and press an icing snowflake on top.
• Mix the icing sugar with enough water to make a pipeable icing, and spoon it into a piping bag fitted with a straight piping nozzle. Pipe patterns onto the snowflakes and add silver balls and sprinkles as you decorate. Leave to dry completely.