Cookie Christmas Tree

I made this cookie Christmas tree from a cookie cutter set I bought 2-3 years ago from Cox & Cox (they don’t do the set any more but you can get similar sets from amazon Wilton Cookie Tree Cutter Kit). I baked the cookies a good week before I assembled the tree and kept them in a tin. Tonight we had parents of friends of our boys coming over and I wanted a fairly easy dessert so I assembled the tree. This was lovely with coffee and between 4 adults and 4 teenage boys we ate almost all the tree!

We have friends with children/teenagers coming to dinner next week so I think I’ll make this again. This would also make a nice present wrapped in cellophane and ribbon.

Ingredients

• 600g/22oz Self raising flour
• 110g/4oz cornflour
• 350g/12oz butter, diced
• 350g/12oz caster sugar
• 4 egg whites

for assembling and icing the tree

• 120-150g royal icing sugar
• 75-100g icing sugar

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 180C/Gas 4/350F
2. Grease 3 large baking trays
3. Sieve the flour and cornflour into a bowl
4. Rub in the butter and stir in the sugar.
5. Stir in enough of the egg white to get a fairly soft dough
6. Knead lightly until smooth and roll out until 5mm thick.
7. Stamp out two of each size of every star with each size of cutter (the set contains 10 cookie cutters).
8. Bake until cookies are a pale golden colour
9. Cool cookies and keep in an airtight container until you are ready to assemble
10. Sort cookies into size order on the counter where you are working
11. Make up the royal icing sugar into a stiff mix and use to stick the biggest cookie to the plate then use to stick each cookie onto the tree in size order. As you assembe  you need to twist/offset the cookies so you get a layered effect.
12. Make up plain icing sugar into a more liquid mixture and drip onto the tree.
13. Add silver balls or sprinkles to decorate.

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