Christmas Tree Ornament Sugar Cookies

I made these to give as a present as a part of a mixed gift goodie pack for Christmas.  I first made sugar cookies for my youngest daughter’s 2^nd birthday party (Hearts and Dorothy the Dinosaur) and I had so much fun that I had to make them again… in the form of tree ornaments!

I made the cookies following this recipe and cut them out using some cardboard that I had previously shaped as I did not have the cookie cutters I wanted.  I also made a small hole on the top of each cookie, so they can be hung on the Christmas tree.

I crushed some hard candy and put it in the hole of the stars, so that when melted in the oven, the candy will look like stained glass.

Put the cookie dough shapes back into the freezer for 10 minutes to 15 minutes to chill again (or you can keep them in the fridge for longer, depending on how warm it is where you live).  They will then hold their shape better when baked.

Bake in a pre-heated oven at 175°C – 350°F for 8 to 12 minutes (I kept mine 12 minutes as they were quite large and thick) or until the edges become golden brown.

Let the cookies cool to room temperature and then decorate them.

I decorated them with Royal Icing (you can find the recipe and a list of all the tools you need here and coloured it with food colouring (both gels and liquid).

You start by outlining the shapes with a very thin line of icing and then fill it in (“flooding”).  Some people use a thinner consistency of icing to flood the cookies, but I followed Marian’s (Sweetopia) suggestion and used the same icing (a bit thicker) to outline and flood because it saved me time.

After flooding them, I made some “marbled” cookies, by drawing thin lines of different colours and then dragging them down (or up and down) with a toothpick.

You can also just make lines and/or little circles with different colours… whatever you fancy.  I also added some silver dragées for a more festive look.

I decided to keep the stars more simple and just decorated them with some white and silver dragées.

They were really so much fun to make and I included them in a Christmas home-made goodie present for some friends!

For more gifts ideas, check out my Christmas 2011 and Christmas 2010 pages.