Ingredients:
Shortbread Cookie Ingredients:
- ¾ cup butter
- 1¼ – 1½ cup flour, plus a pinch for rolling and sprinkling
- ½ cup sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 3 inch Christmas tree cookie cutter
Royal Icing Ingredients:
- 2 cups powdered sugar
- 1 tablespoons meringue powder
- 3 tablespoons water (more if icing isn’t flowing)
- 1 tablespoon Wilton Color Flow (optional)
Other Ingredients:
- M&M Minis or colorful sprinkles
- thin kabob sticks
- wire cutters
- red paper shreds
- floral foam
- silver decorative bucket, flower pot or other container
- marbles or stones (for weight in the bottom of the bouquet container)
- golf ball size piece of fondant or gum paste
- rolling pin
- small rolling pin or glass
- yellow food coloring
- green food coloring
- edible glitter (optional)
- 1 inch star cookie or fondant cutter (optional)
- 2 medium round tips or star tips
- 2 pastry bags
- 1 small piece fabric or felt (optional)
Instructions:
Step 1: Preheat the oven to 325F.
Step 2: Make the shortbread cookie dough by creaming the butter and sugar together until smooth. Add the vanilla. Slowly add the flour until the dough forms into a crumbly ball that holds together when you knead it.
Step 3: Roll the dough out with a rolling pin on a floured board until it’s about 1/3 to ¼ inch thick, and cut out your cookies with the Christmas tree cookie cutter. To make even more trees, collect the scraps roll them out again. You should be able to make about 8 Christmas tree cookies (each about 3 inches) depending on the thickness of the cookies.
Step 4: Place the cookies on an ungreased baking sheet, and insert a kabob stick into the bottom of each cookie, so that part of the stick is couched in the cookie and part is sticking out, like the end of a lollipop.
Step 5: Bake the cookies for about 15 to 20 minutes at 325F, or until the top just starts to turn a light golden brown.
Step 6: When they’re done baking let the cookies cool on the pan, until they’re almost at room temperature. Carefully remove the cookies from the baking sheet, and let them finish cooling on a cooling rack. If you try to remove the cookies from the cookie sheet too quickly, they may fall apart, so give them ample time to cool in the pan.
Step 7: While the cookies are cooling, color the fondant yellow. To to this, simply add a few drops of yellow food coloring to the fondant and pull it. Keep kneading and pulling the fondant until the color is worked evenly throughout the fondant.
Step 8: Roll out the fondant to a thickness of about ¼ inch with a small rolling pin or a glass.
Step 9: Use the star cutter to cut out 8 stars and set them aside to dry.
Step 10: Prepare your container by adding a piece of fabric or felt to flow over the rim (optional). Add marbles or decorative stones to the bottom of the container to help weigh it down and make it stable, otherwise the container may get top heavy when you add the cookie bouquet.
Step 11: Cut a piece of floral foam to fit tightly into the container.
Step 12: Once the floral foam is in the container, top it with the red paper shreds to hide it. Set the container aside until you’re ready for final assembly.
Step 13: Mix up the royal icing by combining the powdered sugar, water, meringue powder, and color flow (optional). Mix at low speed until combined. The icing should eventually flow back into place when you drizzle it.
Step 14: Take out about ¼th of the icing, and leave it white. Color the remaining ¾ths of the icing green by adding a few drops of green food coloring and mixing until it is the desired color.
Step 15: Put the green icing into a pastry bag and attach a star or round tip. Pipe a green outline around each Christmas tree cookie.
Step 16: Add a little more water to the green icing to make it flow more (usually about 1 more teaspoon or less of water). The icing should flow easily, if it doesn’t add more water, a few drops at a time, until you can drizzle icing and it goes back into place with a smooth surface in less than a minute or so.
Step 17: Put the green icing into a pastry bag and attach the round or star tip. Fill in the rest of the cookie with the green icing. Slowly pipe icing around and around until you get to the center of the cookie and it’s all filled in with green icing. The icing should flow into place and cover the cookie, if it doesn’t you need to add a little more water to the icing.
Step 18: Add red Mini M&M’s or Christmas sprinkles to your tree while the icing is still wet. Space these so they look like ornaments on the tree.
Step 19: Add the yellow star to the top of the tree then let the cookie and the decorations dry for a couple hours. If you chose not to make fondant stars, use a piece of decorative candy for the top of your tree.
Step 20: Once the icing has dried, fill a pastry bag with white icing. Attach a star or round tip to pipe a white garland on each of the Christmas trees. Sprinkle edible glitter over the garland (optional).
Step 21: Once the icing is dry, arrange your Christmas tree cookies in the container, poking the sticks through the foam. Use wire cutters to cut off some of the kabob sticks so the cookies are different lengths in the bouquet.
Want more Christmas Recipes?
- 17 Christmas Cookies Around the Web
- 3 Ham Glaze Recipes
- Ice Cream Cone Xmas Trees Recipe
- Grinch Cake Recipe
- Peanut Butter Blossoms Recipe
- Veal Osso Buco Recipe
Find more from Linette Gerlach at The Kid’s Fun Review.
