Butter Cookie Christmas Trees Recipe

Butter Cookie Christmas Trees

Butter Cookie Christmas Trees

MAKES 2 TRAYS

For the dough: 3 cups + 2 tsp (380 g) flour, 1 pinch salt, 1 cup (120 g) powdered sugar, 1 cup + 1½ tbsp (250 g) cold butter, 2 egg yolks

For the icing: ⅔ cup + 2 tbsp + 2 tsp (100 g) powdered sugar, 1–2 tbsp lemon juice

Additional: extra flour to coat parchment paper

On a countertop, mix flour, salt, and sugar. Cut the spread into little pieces, and blend it into the flour blend until brittle. Add in the egg yolks and knead everything into a smooth dough. Form into balls, wrap them in plastic wrap and let them rest for 30 minutes in the refrigerator.

Preheat the oven to 355 °F (180 °C), unless you have a convection oven, in which case preheat to 320 °F (160 °C), or a gas oven, in which case preheat to level 3. Roll out the dough approximately 1/10 in. (3 mm) thick, on a lightly floured countertop, and cut out stars or snowflakes in three, different sizes. Place the cookies onto the baking sheets, which should be lined with parchment paper. Bake one tray at a time in the preheated oven (middle rack) for approximately 10, minutes each, until the cookies are light brown. Remove them from the parchment paper while they are still hotting and let them cool on a cooling rack. Make a glaze by mixing sifted powdered sugar and lemon juice. Make a conical piping bag out of parchment paper, fill it with the glaze, and cut a small hole at the tip of the bag. Squeeze the icing onto the cookies diagonally, in fine lines, and place onto a cooling rack to let the icing harden a bit. Then place the butter cookie on top of each other to form little Christmas trees (see photo), starting with the largest cookies, and then using those that are smaller, in consecutive order.

It goes without saying that you can create many individual cookies from this dough, using any Christmas-themed cookie cutters you’d like. Bake as written above and drizzle with either Ouverture heated to the right temperature (see page 10–11) or a chocolate glaze.

You can display an especially beautiful butter cookie Christmas tree on a cake plate with a glass lid.