Shining star biscuits – Usborne Christmas Cooking

I love these little cookies, you can make them to hang on the Christmas tree but I didn’t have a second tree this year so not enough room. Usually I do a second tree between my kitchen and dining room that I decorate with edible decorations but this year I needed to put up a second table on Christmas day as there were 12 for Christmas dinner so I just couldn’t fit it in.

I doubled up the quantities and since they were for giving away after Christmas rather than to hang on a tree I baked the stars cut out from the middle as little cookies to mix in. They look lovely in a cellophane bag with ribbon

I also doubled the ingredients as the recipe in Christmas Cooking (Usborne Cookbooks) had 1/2 egg! If you were just making shining star biscuits the quantities below would make about 30 – 40.

Ingredients

• 100g/4oz light soft brown sugar
• 100g/4oz softened butter
• 1 small egg
• 230g/9oz plain flour
• 30g/1oz cornflour
• 2 tsp mixed spice
• solid boiled sweets

Instructions

1. Mix the sugar and butter together very well until there are no lumps
2. Break egg into a separate bowl and mix well, then add to the butter mixture a little at a time mixing in well
3. Sift flour, cornflour and mixed spice into the bowl and mix well
4. Squeeze the mixture with your hands until a firm dough is formed and make into a large ball
5. Sprinkle work surface with flour and roll out dough until it is 4mm/0.25in thick
6. Line baking tray (I just greased mine and it was ok). Use cutter to press out lots of stars.Use fish slice to put them onto tray (this is much easier done now rather than after you have cut out the middle).
7. If you are planning to hang on a Christmas tree make a hole in each star by pressing a straw through the dough near top of one of the points.
8. Use a smaller cutter to cut  hole in the middle of each star. The hole should be slightly bigger than the sweet. I used the smallest star cutter, the book suggests a round cutter. I think a round cutter would be better if you were making a hole to hang on a tree.
9. Either squeeze the pieces of dough into a ball and roll out again. Since I have nice little star shapes I baked those as well. Roll out excess and cut out more cookies.
10. Drop a sweet into the hole in each star shape.
    
11. Bake the shapes for 10-12 minutes then take out. Leave them on the tray until they are cold.

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