Merry Christmas, dear friends, and a very happy New Year! Now the star of this post is going to be my Mum, who’s visiting us over the holidays – a far better cook and baker than me, she taught me just about everything I know about cooking and baking; and when I was small, something we always did together were Christmas cookies, the German way, in various shapes and colours. A great way of making Christmas more fun and more colourful, and to spend some family time together, because making them literally is child’s play, suitable for all ages!
The ingredients you need are:
250g flour, 90g sugar, 125g butter, 2 eggs, vanilla extract, icing sugar, food colouring, and some décor like coloured sugar strands.
Clear and clean a big enough surface in your kitchen and put some flour on it; this is going to be where you roll out the dough. For the icing, put 6-8 tbsp icing sugar in a bowl and mix with 1-2 tbsp water until the consistency is right for brushing the cookies with it; you can then divide the mixture up on little plates and colour it with various food colours of your choice.
Mix the flour, sugar, butter, eggs and vanilla extract in a big bowl with a hand mixer; take about a third of the dough and place it on the flour on your kitchen surface, and put the rest in the fridge. Roll out the dough with a rolling pin until it’s about 4-5mm thick. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 175°C (fan).
For cutting the cookies, the best thing is to have a metal or plastic set of cookie cutters; they’re very easy to obtain online. You can also use a knife and cut out your own shapes, though!
When you’ve finished, take away the surplus dough and put it in the fridge with the rest, then put your cookies on a baking tray laid out with baking foil and start decorating them. Brush them with the icing and sprinkle your decoration on them until they’re really colourful!
Bake them for 20-25 minutes; check regularly whether they’ve gone golden brown, that means they’re ready. Then, repeat the same with the second and then the third batch, and in no time you’ll have a great big plate full with delicious, colourful little snacks for the whole family!
Enjoy your baking, dear friends, and once again a very merry Christmas and a wonderful New Year full of love, joy and happiness!
Roberta Franklin 