Christmas cookies

Put 150 g of soft butter into a Mixing bowl and sift 100 g of icing sugar over it.

Beat both with the K-beater until the mixture turns pale.

Crack 1.5 eggs into a small Bowl, whisk them lightly with a fork and add 80 g of this to the butter and icing sugar mixture. Add 1 pinch of salt and 1 tsp of vanilla Liquid aroma. Mix everything once more with the K-beater.

Sift in 250 g of flour and finally add 130 g of ground almonds.

Mix everything for just a few seconds with the K-beater. If the dough is stirred too long in the machine, the gluten develops too strongly and the cookies get bulges instead of smooth surfaces. Then knead the dough into a ball by hand.

Divide the dough into two halves with a dough scraper and place one half on baking paper. For an even thickness I use 3-mm rolling guides. It must not be thicker: a finished cookie consists of two pieces of dough with the filling in between.

Lay a second sheet of baking paper on top and roll out the dough with the large rolling pin. Peel off the top paper, lift the dough onto a perforated tray and place it in the freezer for 10 bis 15 minutes. Then roll out the second half.

I used the Mix & Match cutters from Decora. They come not only with Christmas motifs, but also for Halloween and Easter as well as the classic heart and flower, and if you have several sets you can mix the motifs with one another.

Preheat the oven to 180 °C fan. Once the dough is cold enough, take it out of the freezer and cut out the cookies. Place them on a perforated tray with a perforated mat.

One tray holds 10 bases and 10 lids with a hole, and don't forget the small centre pieces that come off during cutting: they are good for the decoration later. From all the dough I got 3.5 trays, so 35 cookies. Bake them for 8 bis 10 minutes at 180 °C; they should not get too brown. Then transfer them to a cooling rack so they cool faster.

Put the Chocolate flavour pens in a Measuring cup and pour hot water over them. Careful: check beforehand that the lid is properly closed. After about 2 minutes the chocolate has melted and is ready to use.

For the colours I chose white, red and green, and marzipan works just as well. Dust the work surface with Magic roll-out powder so nothing sticks, and use 1.5 mm rolling guides. Roll the Fondant out thinly with a small rolling pin, which is far handier for small decorations than the large one. Cut out the shapes and set the inner pieces aside.

Using the Chocolate flavour pen, put a little chocolate on the cookie, place the Fondant on top and press it down gently so it sticks.

Quick and pretty: let the chocolate run over the cookie in back-and-forth movements and immediately scatter golden nonpareils on top.

Dots, hearts, lines: anything goes here. For a lovely finish, take the small cut-outs from earlier, both the ones from the cookies and the ones from the Fondant, and stick them on with the pen.

Using a small Angled spatula, spread Nutella onto the base, less at the edge than in the middle, so nothing oozes out when you put the pieces together. Any other filling works just as well, for example jam.