Christmas Cookie Tree

Christmas Cookie Tree

Makes 2 Christmas Trees

 
Ingredients
  • 400 g plain flour, plus extra for dusting
  • 30 g cornflour/cornstarch
  • 1 g salt
  • 1 large egg
  • 10 ml vanilla essence
  • 226 g unsalted butter, room temperature temperature
  • 200 g sugar
  • 100 g icing sugar
  • 3 drops green food gel
  • a few drops liquid flavouring, optional
  • 5-10 ml water
  • 20 g Christmas sprinkles
  • 1 g gold sprinkles, optional
Instructions
  1. In the bowl of your stand mixer with the paddle attachment, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add vanilla & egg and beat on high until combined.
  2. Meanwhile sift cornflour, salt and flour together. Turn beater down to low and spoon the dry ingredients until combined.
  3. Dust a bench top with flour then roll out the dough to 3mm thickness. If its too soft put it in the fridge for 15 minutes.
  4. Using an 8pc star cutter set, cut-out one of each size then the same number of the smaller sizes. You will use the smaller stars in between each layer to give your tree height and make piping the leaves easier later.
  5. Finally cut-out one more smallest star for your topper. You should have at least 17 stars for 1 tree. This recipe makes enough dough for 2 trees. Place them carefully on a lined baking tray and chill for 30 minutes while you preheat your oven to 180C.
  6. Bake the cookies for 12-15 minutes or until the bottoms are light brown but the tops should still be quite light. Set aside until cookies are completely cooled down.
  7. Get a piping bag ready. In a small bowl mix icing sugar, food colour and liquid flavouring if using. Start by adding 5ml of water then stir. Your icing should look like a thick paste so that it doesn't run and drip down your tree. Watch the video to see the consistency of my icing. If the mix is too thick, add 1/2 tsp of water at a time until you get a good paste-y consistency.
  8. Transfer icing to a piping bag and nip a the tip. Pipe some icing to cover your star topper then cover it with gold sprinkles and let dry, if you don't want to use gold sprinkles, use the Christmas sprinkles or just dust the cookie with icing sugar without any icing.
  9. Using the icing as glue, build your tree one cookie after another just like the video. When you reach the top, use some more icing as glue to stick the star topper on the tree. Dust with icing sugar for snowy effect.