These Christmas cut-out cookies made with simple hazelnut shortbread dough and spiced with warming allspice and decorated with melted white chocolate and colourful Christmas sprinkles. The recipe brings you a bunch of attractive cookies! Perfect for the holidays!
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Once you prepare all the ingredients, kneading the dough is just a breeze. Be sure to take butter and egg from the fridge on time. The butter should be softened and the egg should be at room temperature. We slice the butter and place in the mixing bowl (do this 1 hour before making the cookies), so it's softened and ready to beating with sugar.
Next step is toasting the hazelnuts (just 5-6 minutes in the oven, on 160°C/320°F should be fine). Once toasted, grind them using nut grinder or blitz in the food processor until finely grind.
We'll be using plain flour and granulated sugar here, so measure them and prepare also baking powder, salt and grated orange zest (for amazing citrus aroma). We blitz whole allspice berries in a coffee grinder so we have the most freshest aroma and flavour (leave slightly coarse, don't blitz in powder and you'll have nice crunch while eating cookies).
Once the dough is done, divide it into two pieces, as the smaller pieces is easier to handle and will cool quicker. Form flat rectangles, wrap both pieces into aluminium foil and keep in the fridge for 1 hour. This will help cookies to hold the shapes and don't spread too much.
For rolling the dough you'll need to slightly dust the work space with flour so the dough doesn't stick. Use either baking paper or pastry mat and proper rolling pin which ensures the cookies are evenly thick.
Roll gently the cookie dough to the thickness of 3mm, then using Christmas star cookie cutter cut out the cookies (we used 6cm cookie cutter). Re-roll the remaining dough and continue cutting until all is used. Repeat with second piece of dough.
For baking these cookies you'll need 2-3 baking sheets as you will bake in several batches. Line them with baking paper, so the cookies don't stick. Be careful while baking. These cookies are thin so they'll need only 6-7 minutes.
So stay close to the oven, as they burn easily. Take them from the oven when lightly brown around the edges. Use thin metal spatula to remove cookies from the sheet (they will be very fragile).
For decorating we'll be using combination of melted white chocolate and Christmas sprinkles. The white chocolate melt easily so broke the chocolate bar into pieces, then place them in a heatproof bowl and place everything over a saucepan of simmering water. Stir with silicon spatula until smooth and completely melted.
Leave for a few minutes then transfer to a disposable piping bag (great tool for decorating bakes with writing or a special pattern). Drizzle over the cookies then sprinkle with colourful Christmas sprinkles. Our Christmas star cookies are ready to enjoy.
Store these cookies in an airtight container, but be sure to separate the layers of cookies with baking paper. This way cookies will keep for up to 2 weeks.
CATEGORIES: Cookies, Christmas,
Hazelnut, White Chocolate
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