Christmas biscuit recipes please

[aznerak]

I am a keen and proficient baker but have volunteered to make biscuits for the Christmas party at my daughter's play school.

I can include any nuts of any sort so need a biscuit dough that keeps its shape when cooking.

I guess I'll do christmas trees and stars unless anyone has a better idea. I did stained glass windows a previous time with melted boiled sweets as the glass but I think the children are too young for those as some are still 2.

Any help most appreciated!

These are sooo amazing and sold out very quickly when I ran a stall at school recently (recipe courtesy of Nigella Lawson):

Butter Cut Out Biscuits

175g soft unsalted butter
200g caster sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
400g plain flour, pref Italian 00, plus more if needed
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
300g icing sugar, sieved, and food coloring

Biscuit cutters

Preheat oven to 180c. Cream the butter & sugar together until pale & moving towards mousiness, then beat in the eggs and vanilla. In another bowl, combine the flour, baking powder & salt. Add the dry ingredients to the butter and eggs, and mix gently but surely. If you think the finished mixture is too sticky to be rolled out, add more flour but do so sparingly as too much will make the dough tough. Halve the dough, form into fat discs, wrap each half in plastic wrap & rest in the fridge for at least an hour. Sprinkle a suitable surface with flour, place a disc of dough on it (not taking out the other half until finished with the first) and sprinkle a little more flour on top of that. Then roll it out to about ½ cm thickness. Cut into shapes, dipping the cutter into flour as you go, and place the biscuits a little apart on baking trays lined with baking paper.

Bake for 8-2 minutes, by which time they will be lightly golden around the edges. Cool on a rack and continue with the rest of the dough. When they?re all fully cooled, you can get on with the icing. Put a couple of tablespoon of just not boiling water into a large bowl, add the icing sugar & mix together, adding more water as needed to form a thick paste. Color as desired. Makes 50-60.

PS I used Christmas shaped cookie cutters and they looked really good. Even iced some too!

THanks Smithy. Does the dough hold its shape when they are cooking or do they spread?

They spread a little so you do need to leave a gap between them on the baking sheet. I also used a sheet of baking parchment to ensure that they didn't stick. They rise a bit too so you can roll them out quite thin too.

(Hadn't realised there are two threads - I just posted on the other one! )