So many things I have to tell you!!

Let’s start by saying that I cannot wait for Christmaaaaaaas!!

I am doing my best to get ready and get into the Christmas spirit so every week I try to do something “Christmassy” to enjoy it as it will come and go so quickly that I want to fully live this festive time.

Last week I decided to make this simple Christmas biscuit tree thinking that it would be a pretty decoration for the house.. unfortunately it was eaten after 3 days.. thank God my Real Christmas tree is made of plastic otherwise it would have already gone!

Anyway going back to my Christmas Tree Stack here is the recipe to make one that will still be edible after few days ie it won’t become hard like the ginger biscuits I made last week (I almost lost a tooth by biting one!). You would need to have 5 graduated star shape cutters as you would need two biscuits per size to stack up to make the tree.

Here are the ingredients:

1) 300 gr of plain flour
2) 5 tbsp of sugar
3) Icing sugar
4) 150 gr of soft unsalted butter cut into pieces.
5) Water – 1 tbsp.
6) 1 Egg
7) 1tsp of vanilla extract
8) 1 tsp of baking powder
9) Icing sugar for decoration.

Instructions:

1) Pour the sugar into a bowl or on your marble kitchen table. Sift in the flour and the baking powder.

2) Using your fingertips,  rub in the butter until the mixture looks like bread crumbs.

3) Add the egg and the vanilla extract. Work all ingredients well until you get a firm dough. Ok my dough doesn’t look really smooth as I (and bump) were getting tired of working it but I’m sure you will do better than me 😉

4) Wrap the dough in cling film and leave it in the fridge for about half an hour.

5) Set the oven to 180°C or gas mark 4

6) Prepare your baking trays by covering them with non stick baking paper.

7) Take the dough out from the fridge.

8) On a floured surface spread out the dough to about 5 mm thickness.

9) Cut out various star shapes from the dough using your cookie cutters. Cut two shapes of each size.

10) Lift the shapes onto the non stick baking paper and bake for 10-12 mins.

11) Take the baked stars out of the oven and cool them for a couple of minutes then lay them in a wire rack to cool off completely.

12) To make the icing sift the icing sugar in a bowl and add a little bit of water. The icing should be thick enough to quickly form a thick coating on the back of the spoon.

15) Stack two of each size, alternating the points and keeping the bigger ones at the bottom and the smaller ones at the top. Spread a little royal icing onto each cookie to stack them up (promise this will glue them like super glue!)

16) Press these down lightly to let the icing hold these together.

17) You can add some decoration to your Christmas stack cookie tree by adding some little silver sugar balls OR just sift some icing sugar on the top. I personally put the top star in a vertical position just like I would do with a real Christmas tree.

18) Take some picture and show them off on Instagram 😉