There is nothing better than a good biscuit. And I am partial to baking all kinds of biscuits but cookies for the tree can be simple or elaborate depending on your style. I remember when my son was a crawling toddler and I made Christmas Tree Cookies decorated with icing sugar and edible leaf only to find during the day teeth imprints on the hanging cookies followed by our Border Terrier following his example. This year and many years older, he has baked the cookies and we have used Rosemary to decorate some and made different sizes from a cookie cutter. We shopped last week for gorgeous ribbons and trimmings from Habadashery shops, remembering them from my fashion days and these ribbons and trimmings provide instant colour with homespun decorations of reds, whites, blues against the green backdrop of the tree. I have avoided the use of icing sugar and chocolate as the inside of a house in the winter is quite warm and we don't want melting issues on carpets as there is enough to do in December without extra cleaning. You can bake more and add each week and of course eat them whilst they hang from the tree, or a use a cookie jar!
Ingredients
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Makes 20 depending on size of 2 small and large cutters
200g unsalted butter
150g icing sugar
1 egg
2 egg yolks
1 teaspoon of vanilla beanpaste
1 teaspoon of baking powder
1/2 bicarbonate of baking soda
350g plain flour
100g cornflour
Chopped Rosemary pressed onto the biscuit gently after using the cutter
Icing sugar to decorate
Ribbons to decorate - adjust the size to your liking
 Using Rosemary sprigs, remove from the small branches and cut the Rosemary leaves coarsley.
Preheat your oven to 180C or 350F and line 2 or 3 baking trays with baking paper.
Using the electric mixer with the paddle fitting, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Then add the egg, egg yolks, vanilla, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda to the mixture. Keep scraping down the sides of the bowl to make sure all the ingredients are creamed and unclogging up the beater too. Keep returning to the whisking bowl .
In a seperate bowl add the flour and cornflower and gently combine with a spoon. Add the flour mixture to the creamed butter mixture gradually and carefully on a low setting (you don't want flour all over the place) until it comes to a soft warm dough.
On your lightly floured bench put the dough on top and then cut it into half. Roll out the dough to about 4mm thick and cut using rounds of 5cm and 9cm (I used my potato fondant cutters, but you can improvise with any shapes you have if you don't have specific cutters). Remember they will expand in the oven so ensure they aren't too close to each other. Find a utensil to make a small hole at the top of the cookie (I used the end of a squarerish spoon end) it is best to give a good poke for bigger holes as it will close up as the pastry rises and it depends on the size of your ribbons too. Ensure you do not put the hole too near the top, as when you thread the ribbons through, the cookie can sometimes crack, so aim for slightly higher than midway. Gently press the rosemary into the top of some of the cookies ensuring they keep their shape. Transfer the cookies onto the lined baking trays.
Bake for 10 - 17 minutes depending on the size and ensure they are golden in colour, the large ones will take longer and move around from the upper and lower oven trays if necessary. Remove from the oven and transfer to a wire rack so that they cool easier. You may want to enlarge the holes on the cookies and make sure they are fully open ( check the back of the cookie) and adjust accordingly. When cooled have your ribbons cut to a length of your choosing and thread through your cookies. Sprinkle with icing sugar to give a festive flourish and then tie around branches of your Christmas Tree to decorate.
I like to have some plain ones to give to neighbours with small children. You can put fillings into the cookies but often these are very sweet so I have plain and sweet which I store seperately.
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