Christmas is just around the corner and I love to make a few biscuits with a Christmassy twist to have with a cup of coffee.
This is an old basic gingerbread recipe that I’ve spiced up with some extra warm spices, like nutmeg and cinnamon. I decided to make a tree with my biscuits using Christmas tree star cutters from Lakeland, but you could make biscuits of any shape of course. Just remember to bake for a little less time the smaller biscuits.
They keep well in a tin for a week, if they last that long that is! This is a great recipe to make with children as they love getting their (clean) hands into the mix and squidging it around. Then of course there’s all the fun with the biscuit cutters!
Christmas Biscuit Tree
Ingredients
120g butter
120g soft brown sugar
1 tbsp black treacle
1 tbsp golden syrup
1 tsp orange juice
240g self-raising flour
2 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp mixed spice
½ tsp ground nutmeg
½ tsp ground cinnamon
To decorate: icing sugar and silver balls (or decorations of your choice)
Method
Pre-heat the oven to 170C/150C Fan/Gas 3.
Grease and flour a couple of baking trays, or use a silicone mat as I did. Cream together the butter, sugar, treacle, syrup and orange juice. Sift in the dry ingredients and using your hands start to bring the dough together. Knead well on a floured board and roll out to about 5mm thick. 
Choose your biscuit cutters and stamp out the shapes, re-rolling the dough as necessary. Place on the baking trays and bake for 10-20 minutes depending on size and thickness. (Maybe a little longer for the very big star shapes). Cool a little before placing on a cooling rack.
Make up a glace icing by sifting some icing sugar and gradually adding a little water until it is thick. You could use orange juice if liked. Use to have some fun decorating the biscuits either using a piping bag or spreading the icing onto each biscuit and adding silver balls or other decorations. Or just sift some icing sugar over each biscuit for a snow effect.
Note: I used the Lakeland cutters to create my Christmas tree. With this quantity of dough, I used the 9 smaller cutters and cut 3 of the smallest stars. Then I used a small round cutter to cut biscuits to fit in between each star shape. 
I decorated each star biscuit with zigzag piping and placed a silver ball on each point. Glue 2 round biscuits one on top of the other with icing and stick onto the serving plate, then start to layer up the tree starting with the largest star and placing a round biscuit in between each star. At the top, I stuck two small stars together and decorated with lots of silver balls then stood them on top of the tree. Dust the whole lot with a sprinkling of icing sugar if desired.
Have fun and a Merry Christmas!
Melody x