This Christmas, as probably most of you, I have a very tight budget for my Christmas presents.
I have been roaming around high-street stores for several days without finding anything that could possibly fulfil my requirements:
1) have some kind of purpose... I do not know about you but I am fed up of the usual standardised mug with sweets or boots beauty kit where you buy more display packaging than actual product content.
2) If possible be slightly original ... and
3) Be cheap!
It took me some time to reach the solution. I was staring at some cheesy "German-style cookies" at the Christmas market probably containing a dose of preservatives that would easily make them last till next Christmas and sold at the modest price of £10 each. Something started to turn in my head, I bought some cute Christmas paper dishes, cellophane paper and some golden ribbon and a bunch of assorted sweets and I rushed back home.
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Delicious Christmas Cookies Recipe
Ingredients:
4 free range egg yolks
150g unsalted butter
300g flower
120g sugar
the grated zest of 1 organic lemon
natural vanilla essence
1 pinch of salt
1/2 bag of "Lievito Pane Degli Angeli" (alternative 1 the spoon of baking powder)
For Decorating
Ingredients:
hart-shaped and berry-shaped soft sweets
icing sugar (as much as required)
a few drops of water
sunflower oil
Preparation
Combine the ingredients (take out of the fridge eggs and butter at least 15-30 min before starting) till you get a homogeneous dough. Make a ball and cover with cooking film and place in the fridge for 15 minutes. Roll your dough in a sheet approximately 0.5 inch thick cut out your cookies using any type of cookie cutters (to make my Christmas tree and hart I have made the shapes myself cutting them out form some food cardboard).
Dispose the cookies on a tray covered with a sheet of cooking foil. Bake at 180°C for 15-20 minutes in preheated oven.
Let your cookies cool down, move them from the oven tray and dispose them in a plate. Prepare your own icing mixing together 2 tbs of icing sugar with 1 the spoon of water, add 1 or drops of sunflower oil to make the icing more shiny. To get different icing colours and flavours you can add 1 the spoon of pure cocoa powder (Van Houten is great) or buy some food colours.
Decorate your biscuits at your leisure using the icing to stick the sweets and to make cute curls.
