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gingerbread men decorated with royal icing
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5 from 2 votes

Iced Christmas Biscuits - How to Cut Out Shapes and Decorate Cookies

Iced Christmas Biscuits are an easy and fun activity for the whole family to do together!
We show you how to make and bake a basic vanilla flavoured biscuit suitable for making cookie cutter shaped cutouts.
Children will love to help you with decorating the Santa, Elf, Reindeer and Gingerbread Man, Xmas cookies with royal icing.
Furthermore, they make the best homemade gift ideas for the kids to pass on to relatives and friends. UK and US measurements are given.
Prep Time20 mins
Active Time10 mins
Icing time20 mins
Total Time50 mins
Course: Biscuits
Cuisine: British
Keyword: basic biscuit dough, christmas biscuits, Christmas cookies, cookie cutters, cut out, decorating biscuits, elf, gingerbread man, iced xmas cookies, reindeer, Santa, xmas biscuits
Yield: 35 biscuits
Calories: 147kcal

Equipment

  • Christmas Cookie Cutters
  • Ginger Bread Man Cutter
  • rolling pin
  • Cake mixer
  • piping bags

Materials

Christmas Cookie Cutter Biscuits

  • 200 g butter take out of the fridge at least 1 hr before use
  • 200 g granulated sugar
  • 1 Egg beaten
  • 2 tsp Vanilla Extract
  • 2 tsp Baking Powder
  • 400 g flour you may need little more to get to playdough consistency

Royal Icing

  • 350 g Icing sugar
  • 2 Pasteruised egg whites or egg white powder see blog post for more info, do not use regular raw egg white.
  • ½ tsp vanilla extract
  • ½ tsp cream of tartar
  • Food Colouring Gel Your choice of colours

To decorate

  • sprinkles/sparkles/ balls/ little fudge bits for decorating

Instructions

Christmas Cookie Cutter Biscuits

  • Place room temperature butter and sugar in a bowl and use electric whisk or cake stand mixer for 2 minutes to beat until light and fluffy.
    WIll take longer if doing by hand.
    beating butter and sugar with whisk
  • Add egg and vanilla extract, mix in for 1 minute.
    adding vanilla extract to biscuit mix
  • Add the baking powder & ½ the flour, use a spoon to mix in.
    flour added to butter and sugar
  • Add the remaining ½ of the flour, bit by bit, it will get stiffer to stir.
    Check consistency, it should be like playdoh. Keep adding more flour until its right, if it gets too stiff add a bit of water.
    biscuit dough consistency like Playdoh
  • Divide the mixture into 3 equal sized balls. Each ball will cover make 12, biscuits measuring 8cm.
    Put the 3 biscuit dough balls in a ziplock bag in the fridge for about 25 minutes or for quicker chilling, use the freezer for 10 minutes at this point.
    Tip! If you want to you can store in fridge or freezer to make more biscuits for another day? Check blog post for details.
    biscuit dough consistency like Playdoh
  • Preheat oven to 175°C/ 340°F fan oven
    Place a sheet of parchment paper down roll the biscuit dough out on it. Until it is around 1 cm or ¼ of an inch thick
    rolling out sugar biscuits ready to cut out
  • Transfer the parchment paper to a baking sheet.
    Use cutters to cut into desired shapes. Use the handle of a fork to remove and stuck biscuits.
    Joie christmas cutters elf in biscuit dough use fork to remove
  • Reroll what is left and continue on a new sheet of parchment paper, until there is no dough left.
    Joie christmas cutters reindeer, elf and santa in biscuit dough
  • Bake on 175°C/ 340°F for about 7-9 minutes. Keep an eye on them remove from oven before they change colour!
    Look for tiny cracks to appear on the surface to know when they are ready.
    Baked Christmas Biscuits ready to be Iced Joie Christmas Cutters
  • They will still be soft when you remove them, don't worry, once they cool they will firm up!
    Gingerbread men Christmas biscuits

How to make Royal Icing

  • Mix icing sugar, cream of tartar, vanilla extract and whisked egg whites together in a bowl
    two chicks egg white used in royal icing mix
  • Use a mixer on low setting until icing is smooth. You want it to be a thick consistency to pipe without running off the biscuit, add more icing if needed?
    Check the blog post for more info on consistany
    royal icing mixed in plastic bowl
  • Put royal icing into separate bowls for each colour and we used 4 colours. Plain white, red, green and black.
    Food Colouring gel added to royal icing
  • Use gel food colouring to colour each bowl of icing.
    Food Colouring gel added to royal icing
  • Place a spoonful of each into its own piping bag. Add some water to the remaining icing left in bowls to make a thinner icing to fill in larger areas on the biscuits.
    Placing black royal icing into a clear plastic piping bag which over a glass to help stop spillage when filling
  • Make sure biscuits are cooled before piping.
    Pipe the outlines on the biscuits with the thick icing.
    Decorating Joie christmas elf biscuit with royal icing. Xmas Cookies
  • The remaining icing in bowls, add a bit of water, to make it runnier and put in more piping bags.
    Use to fill larger areas outlined with the thick icing.
    A toothpick can help spread the thin royal icing.
    Decorating Joie christmas santa biscuit with royal icing. Xmas Cookie
  • The royal icing will be touch dry within 30 minutes. However, allow them to fully dry for a couple of hours before storing.
    Iced Christmas biscuits decorated with royal icing
  • Once fully dried they can be stored on top of each other in an airtight container and stored at room temperature for up to a week.
    Stack of reindeer iced christmas biscuits. Xmas Cookies

Video

Nutrition

Calories: 147kcal | Carbohydrates: 25g | Protein: 2g | Fat: 5g | Saturated Fat: 3g | Cholesterol: 17mg | Sodium: 46mg | Potassium: 48mg | Fiber: 1g | Sugar: 16g | Vitamin A: 150IU | Calcium: 14mg | Iron: 1mg