Christmas Cookie Recipe

Lets talk about Christmas cookies! I made these ones when experimenting with this gingerbread man recipe. I didn't have any ginger or man shaped cutters so obviously I had to alter the recipe a good bit and I ended up with these 'Christmas flavour' cookies. I basically substituted ginger for mixed spice so these taste of Christmassy cinnamon and ginger goodness, they also have a lovely soft texture like the best kind of gingerbread.

Ingredients:
350g/12oz plain flour, plus extra for rolling out
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
3 tsp mixed spice
125g/4½oz butter
175g/6oz light soft brown sugar
1 free-range egg
4 tbsp golden syrup
Icing/ sprinkles if you want to decorate them

Method:

1. Mix together the flour, bicarbonate of soda and mixed spice. Add the butter and carry on until it looks like breadcrumbs. Now stir in the sugar.
2. Lightly beat the egg and golden syrup together, then add to the dry ingredients and mix until it clumps together. Then knead the dough briefly until it's smooth, wrap it in clingfilm and leave it in the fridge for 15 minutes.
3. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4 and line baking trays with greaseproof paper.
4. Roll the dough out on a lightly floured surface, the cookies won't rise a great deal so roll it to maybe half the thickness you want the cookies. Then use cookie cutters to cut out whatever shapes you want- my hearts were more successful than my stars as the points on the stars were quick to over bake. Then place them on the baking tray, leaving a small gap between each cookie.
5. Bake until lightly golden-brown- this may take anything from 5 to 15 minutes depending on the size and thickness of your cookies, I'd give them 5 minutes and then see how close to done they are. 
6. When they're cool you can decorate them however you want- you can easily get them to look a lot more professional than mine if you invest in either squeezy icing or a piping bag and don't allow a six year old to help you! I think they would be nice if you made a thin icing sugar and water icing and used it to glaze them. Or you could pipe designs on them which would look cute if you wanted to give some away as a Christmas gift.

Please let me know if you make these I'd love to see a photo! What do you like to bake at Christmas? See you soon!

Eva xx