Christmas Cookies

Hey guys,

I got this recipe from the Barefoot Contessa cooking show. I love Ina Garten :) This recipe ended up making about  30+ cookies (I forgot to count I think it mighta been 32, there was ALOT!) I made these for a Christmas dinner party that I went to at my friends house.

So to make the cookies I used Barefoots some what "simple" shortbread recipe.

Ingredients:

• 3 1/2 cups all purpose flour (I used plain which is pretty much the same thing)
• 3/4 pound unsalted butter
• 1 cup caster sugar
• Vanilla extract (I used Jamaican Vanilla essence which is more potent and flavoursome than Vanilla extract :D)
• 1 tsp salt
• Icing sugar
• Green food colouring
• Decorations

Method:

 Add the butter, sugar, vanilla, flour and salt into a mixing bowl. The picture leaves little to be desired haha. You're supposed to use an electric mixer with a paddle attachment but my sister is the only one with one of those and she doesn't let me use it :( so I used a handheld mixer.

Once its all combined, place the dough onto a floured surface. It turned out a bit to dry that I couldn't get it into a proper dough so while it was on the surface I added some water to it. Then you need to knead it together and roll into a disc. Wrap in cling film and place in the fridge for about half an hour.

Once chilled take the dough out of the fridge, place on a floured surface, flour your rolling pin and start rolling out the dough.

Once you've got your dough rolled out to about 2inches in thickness. Then proceed to cut out your cookies. I used a tree shaped cookie cutter :) Place the cookies on baking tray lined with greaseproof paper. Bake on Gas mark 4 for 20-25 minutes.

Once the cookies are golden brown, remove them from the oven and leave to cool.

Make up your icing and add the green food colouring, then decorate the cookies. I used silver sugar balls (to act as baubles) and I used pink sugar glitter to give the tree a bit of pizazz haha

I LOVE how these turned out. They tasted so good. And EVERYONE at the party LOVED. My sisters were big  fans too. I will defo make these more often :)

Hope you enjoyed this post. If you try these out let me know how they turned out.

S x