Christmas cookies for the holly three

Christmas cookies for the holly three

Ingredients:

125 g soft butter
160 g sugar
2 tablespoons mascarpone (or sour cream)
1 egg
200-250 g flour
40 g ground almonds
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon ground ginger
½ Tonka bean, ground
½ teaspoon mahlèpe

Preparation:

In a bowl, cream the soft butter and sugar. Beat in the egg and whisk until the mixture absorbs it. Then add the mascarpone and keep working with the electric mixer a big longer.

One by one, incorporate the dry ingredients and spices, starting from ground the almonds, then the sifted flour. Make a smooth dough and let it rest 20 minutes wrapped in a piece of transparent film.

Roll out the dough on a sheet of parchment paper until 5-6 mm thick. Cut figures with Christmas cookie cutters. Arrange the biscuits on a large baking tray covered with parchment paper. Pierce each with a sushi stick to make a Christmas three decoration.

Bake the cookies in the oven at 175°C until golden brown. Then cool completely. Store in a metal box until Christmas time. They can be prepared a week in advance.

Optionally, you can decorate the cookies with icing (industrial or homemade). For this, you would need pastry bags (disposable, at least 2 per 1 color), round fine nozzle, food colorings, mini sugar particles (beads, stars, coconut), 1 egg white and icing sugar (or industrial icing).

Firstly, make a fairly thick icing using an electric mixer. He reminds the consistence of a cake batter. Put some in a pastry bag and draw the contours of the biscuits (use the small round tip). Then, dilute a little icing (like a stirred yogurt) and fill these contours. Use again a pastry bag, just cutting the end to leave a hole of 2 mm. Let this dry thoroughly before finishing the decoration with thick icing and the thin tip. Let stand at least 2-3 hours before inserting a string or ribbon through the holes of the cookies. Attach the beautiful biscuits on the Christmas tree or offer as a gift.

 More decorating ideas: