Assorted Decorated Christmas Cookies

Decorated Christmas cookies can be found easily during Christmas season in most bakery. It can be made as simple as a sugar cookie dusted with colored sprinkles, or an elaborate with different combination of decorating techniques to create an edible work of art. Whereas, each cookie is unique and it makes excellent as homemade gifts that work great for Christmas cookie exchanges.

A Gingerbread man is a cookie made of gingerbread, usually in the shape of a human. It started back to the 15th century where figural cookie-making was practiced and the first documented figure-shaped gingerbread cookies appearing was in the court of Elizabeth I of England. Today, gingerbread man cookies can take form in any shapes and colour depend on the ingredients used and some might only take after it's name but without adding spices or ginger as one of the traditional ingredients.

Although it might look and sound tedious on the making and decorating process but I am sure it worth all the time and effort just to bring a smile on the recipients' face. In this recipe, I omitted the use of spices because my boy don't really fancy the taste of it. Instead I used the 70% Dark chocolate and I sugar syrup using Kahlua(Coffee flavored liqueur) and sugar to enhance the fragrance and taste.

Ingredients:
125g Plain Flour
1/4 Teaspoon Baking Soda
1/2 Teaspoon Baking Powder
1/4 Teaspoon Cinnamon Powder, optional
40g Caster Sugar
30ml Water
15ml Kahlua
50g Dark Chocolate
45g Butter

Method:
1. Sift flour, baking soda and baking powder together.
2. Combine sugar, water and Kahlua in a small sauce and simmer over low heat to form syrup(until sugar melted, stir on and off to prevent burning)
3. Melt the chocolate and butter in microwave (medium low for 15 - 20 sec), removed and stir the mixture till well combined.
4. Add the slightly cool chocolate into the flour mixture, mix well then pour in the sugar syrup to form a smooth dough.
5. Divide the dough into two portion in two different plastic bags and flatten slightly, keep in the fridge for about 30 minutes.
6. Roll out 1 portion of the dough between two sheets of baking paper to about 5mm thickness.
7. Cut out different shapes using the Christmas cookies cutters.
8. Bake for about 12 - 15 minutes till cooked.
9. Remove from oven, set aside to cool then decorate with royal icing.


When the cookies are completely cool to room temperature, you can make different colour of Royal Icing to decorate your Christmas cookies accordingly to your liking. And this is the fun part where you can get the kids at home to participate. I am sure they will enjoy decorating their favour cookies which make great bonding time for the family.

Ingredients:
65g Icing Sugar
1/2 Egg White
1/4 Teaspoon Lemon Juice
Assorted Food Colourings
Assorted Christmas Theme Sprinkles, optional

Method:
1. Sift the icing sugar and set aside.
2. Beat the egg white till foamy then add in lemon juice and icing sugar in a few batches till smooth. (about 5 - 8 minutes, it must be a spreadable consistency)
3. Divide the icing into a few portion then mixed with your desire colours.
4. Spoon icing into disposal piping bag, snip the tip off and pipe decorative outlines and design on each biscuit.


This is a "Stars Tower' done by boy where he stack up three different size of the star cookies to form the shape of a little Christmas Tree. He also sprinkle some Christmas Red, Green & White Nonpareils on it.

While playing one of the Facebook game - Pet Society, Rey has a virtual Christmas tree in it. So while decorating the cookies, he also insists of having a big Tree for him to decorate with his favourite toppings. So he used his favourite M&M with only green and red plus some Silver Dragees that we have in the pantry.

Finally, we have finished decorating our Christmas Cookies with all sort of designs that we can think of. And as you can see, these cookies will look just great for gifts during this season after decorated with these colourful icing and sprinkles.