SANTA COOKIES

These festive biccies are decorated using royal icing and give the perfect shape for Santa’s hat and beard.

MAKES 10

For the cookies

115g butter, softened 60g caster sugar 170g plain flour, sifted, plus extra for dusting Grated zest of 2 clementines

A little milk, if needed To decorate

400g royal icing sugar, sifted

Red and black food colouring gels Large white snowflake sprinkles, or similar

Whisk together the butter and sugar. Add the flour and zest and whisk to form a dough, adding milk if needed. Wrap in clingfilm. Chill for 30 mins. Preheat the oven to 180°C, gas mark 4. On a flour-dusted surface, roll the dough to 5mm thick. Cut out 10 diamonds with 8cm sides. Put on baking sheets and bake for 10-15 minutes until the cookies are golden brown. Cool on a wire rack.

Whisk the icing sugar with 3 tablespoons of water to make a stiff icing. Colour a third of the icing red and spoon 2 spoonfuls into a piping bag. Spoon 5 spoonfuls of white icing into another. Pipe a red line along the top two edges of the cookies. Pipe the outline of the band of Santa’s hat with the white, then a half-egg shape below to outline his face.

Scrape the red icing back into its bowl and about half the white icing into its bowl. Add a little water to each so the icing is thin enough to flow. Spoon some white icing into a bowl and add red colouring to make a pale pink.

Flood pink into the half-egg shapes. Do the same with the red icing in the hat outline and the white icing in the hat band. Dip a toothpick into the red icing and add cheeks. Add black food colouring to the pink icing and add eyes with a toothpick. Pipe a white beard at the base. Pipe a blob of icing on the top of each hat with a sprinkle. Allow to set.