Christmas star cookie tree
Ingredients
600g plain flour
300g butter, cold and cut into cubes
200g caster sugar
2 eggs
1 orange zest
4 cardamom pods
1kg white ready to roll white icing
2 tablespoons apricot or orange jam
some sugar pearls for decorating
Instructions
1. Preheat the oven to 170°C.
2. In a food processor blend the flour and cold butter until they resemble breadcrumbs. Add the sugar, eggs, orange
zest and crushed cardamom seeds then mix until it forms a ball of dough. Wrap the dough in cling film and chill for
at least 1 hour.
3. Halve the dough. Roll one half of the dough out on a lightly floured work surface to a thickness of 5mm. Cut the
star shapes, two of each size. Arrange them on prepared baking trays.
4. Bake the cookies for about 10-12 minutes, or until golden. Leave to cool for 10 minutes before transferring to a
wire rack to cool completely to avoid to get broken.
5. On a surface lightly dusted with icing sugar roll out the fondant icing to a thickness of 5mm. Use the star cookie
cutters to cut out two of each size from the icing.
6. One at a time, brush each cookie with a little jam and then top the cookie with a star of fondant icing. Leave the
icing covered cookies on a rack for a couple of hours for the icing to dry and harden.
7. Stack your cookie tree starting with the largest size at the bottom and top with the smallest star, brush the middle
on top with some jam.
8. Decorate the stars with sugar pearls and sprinkle with icing sugar.