Christmas is all about family, gift giving, celebrations, and of course, delicious food. If you’re in need of a simple yet joyful sweet treat, we’ve got the perfect recipe for you. Our buttery shortbread biscuits have had a Christmas makeover. Easy to make and gently flavoured with fragrant spices, they’re a real festive crowd pleaser.
Equipment suggestions
- Christmas tree cookie cutter (or a sharp knife if you’re a dab hand at tree shaping!)
- Hard anodised baking tray x 2
- Large mixing bowl
- Wooden spoon
- Heatproof bowl
- Sauce pan
- Disposable piping bag (or ziplock bag)
- Spoon
- Scissors
Ingredients (makes 12-14)
- 150g Salted butter, room temperature
- 100g caster sugar
- ½ tsp cinnamon
- ¼ tsp nutmeg
- ¼ tsp mixed spice
- Pinch of ground ginger
- 250g plain flour
For icing
- 100g white chocolate
- Edible silver pearls or stars, to decorate
Method
- Take the butter out of the fridge and leave until room temperature.
- Once soft, put the butter, sugar and spices into a mixing bowl, and cream together using a wooden spoon, until you have a smooth mixture.
- Add the flour and mix together. Then, use your hands and form a ball of dough, gently kneading until smooth and combined well.
- Roll out the dough on a floured surface, until about 1cm thick. Use your cookie cutter to cut out biscuits, until you have 12-14. (Or you can make more if you have leftover dough to save food waste).
- Line your baking trays with parchment paper and space the biscuits out on the baking trays and chill in the fridge for 40 mins. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to gas 6, 200°C, fan 180°C.
- Bake in the oven for 15-18 minutes until pale golden. Leave to cool on the tray for 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
- For the icing, break up your white chocolate into pieces and pop in a heatproof bowl. Set over a pan of simmering water.
- Slowly melt the chocolate, stirring occasionally until melted fully. Spoon the chocolate into a disposable piping bag and snip the tip off.
- Pipe the chocolate in a zig-zag pattern across each shortbread tree so that it looks like tinsel or Christmas lights.
- Stick your silver balls onto the icing to form baubles. Leave to dry and set for at least 1 hour and enjoy!
If you want to experiment and get creative, here’s some fun festive alternatives to try, giving these biscuits a little twist:
- Decorate and design to your heart’s content. You can decorate these biscuits with anything you desire, such as edible glitter, candied fruit or silver stars.
- You could use any cookie cutters to make different festive biscuit shapes such as snowflakes, gingerbread men or santa hats. The choices are endless!
- If you want to make these biscuits into edible Christmas tree decorations, take a small icing nozzle (or similar) and make a hole at the top of each biscuit before baking them in the oven. Once decorated, thread some ribbon through the holes of each biscuit and hang them on the tree.
- Save prepping time and make these biscuits up to 1 week ahead of Christmas. But remember to store them in an airtight container to keep them fresh, and ice the day before serving.
If you’re looking for some other festive recipe ideas for the Christmas break, then check out the below:
