Star Shortbread Tree Recipe by Laura Delve
Laura Delve is absolutely wonderful and runs Laura's Little Book Blog. Laura reviews all kinds of fiction and loves to try out new genres and authors. When she's not working as a Marketing Executive in London you'll find her with her head in a book or she'll be tweeting and blogging! You can find her on Twitter.
Laura has gone for a different approach to the Christmas feature and has given us our first recipe! I really want to go and try this out now...I do fancy some shortbread!
Laura has gone for a different approach to the Christmas feature and has given us our first recipe! I really want to go and try this out now...I do fancy some shortbread!
Thank you to Laura for having me on her blog today. I was going to write a flash fiction piece, but after writing, rewriting and getting a bit frustrated, I gave up. So here is a lovely recipe that I found last year for a Shortbread tree recipe. Hope you like it as much as I did if you decide to make it.
Ingredients:
500g (1lb) plain flour
300g (10oz) unsalted butter
150g (5oz) caster sugar
Pinch of salt
1 large egg
2tbsp milk
Few drops of vanilla extract
Icing sugar, for dusting
For decoration:
125g (4oz) royal icing sugar
6 x star cookie cutters in various sizes, from 4.5cm to 13.5cm
You'll also need:
Baking sheets, lined with non-stick liners or baking parchment
Method
1. Set the oven to 180°C or gas mark 4.
2. Tip the flour into the bowl of a food processor, add the butter, sugar and salt, and whizz until the mixture forms fine breadcrumbs. Add the egg, milk and vanilla extract, and whizz the mixture until the ingredients bind together into a dough. Or rub the butter into the flour, add the other ingredients and work them until they bind together.
3. Roll the dough out to about 5mm and, for each tree, cut out two of each size of cutter, re-rolling dough as necessary. So, for two trees, cut out four of each size. Place cookies on the lined baking sheets and bake the cookies in the centre of the oven for 12-15 mins, or until they're a light golden colour.
4. Remove cookies from oven and transfer to wire racks to cool. Dust cold cookies with icing sugar.
5. To decorate the cookies, mix water into the royal icing sugar to give a spreadable consistency. To save making your own, ready-made royal icing can be used to stick the cookies together. Spread a little royal icing onto each cookie to stack them up. Stack two of each size, alternating the points, and sticking the top star on vertically. Leave a while for the royal icing to set before placing the cookie trees on plates and wrapping them in cellophane. The cookies will keep in an airtight container for up to 1 week (not suitable for freezing).
You can also decorate the cookies how you want. I put little silver balls around the edges on mine
You can find this recipe and more from Good To Know
Ingredients:
500g (1lb) plain flour
300g (10oz) unsalted butter
150g (5oz) caster sugar
Pinch of salt
1 large egg
2tbsp milk
Few drops of vanilla extract
Icing sugar, for dusting
For decoration:
125g (4oz) royal icing sugar
6 x star cookie cutters in various sizes, from 4.5cm to 13.5cm
You'll also need:
Baking sheets, lined with non-stick liners or baking parchment
Method
1. Set the oven to 180°C or gas mark 4.
2. Tip the flour into the bowl of a food processor, add the butter, sugar and salt, and whizz until the mixture forms fine breadcrumbs. Add the egg, milk and vanilla extract, and whizz the mixture until the ingredients bind together into a dough. Or rub the butter into the flour, add the other ingredients and work them until they bind together.
3. Roll the dough out to about 5mm and, for each tree, cut out two of each size of cutter, re-rolling dough as necessary. So, for two trees, cut out four of each size. Place cookies on the lined baking sheets and bake the cookies in the centre of the oven for 12-15 mins, or until they're a light golden colour.
4. Remove cookies from oven and transfer to wire racks to cool. Dust cold cookies with icing sugar.
5. To decorate the cookies, mix water into the royal icing sugar to give a spreadable consistency. To save making your own, ready-made royal icing can be used to stick the cookies together. Spread a little royal icing onto each cookie to stack them up. Stack two of each size, alternating the points, and sticking the top star on vertically. Leave a while for the royal icing to set before placing the cookie trees on plates and wrapping them in cellophane. The cookies will keep in an airtight container for up to 1 week (not suitable for freezing).
You can also decorate the cookies how you want. I put little silver balls around the edges on mine
You can find this recipe and more from Good To Know