candy-coated chocolate chips or mini candy Christmas lights
Instructions
To make the cookies
Beat together butter, brown sugar and honey in an electric mixer (or by hand) until combined.
Then beat in the egg.
In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, nutmeg, anise and salt.
Add the dry ingredients into the butter/sugar mixture and beat until the dough forms.
If using an electric mixer, the dough will pull away from the sides of the bowl.
Divide the dough in half and transfer each half of the dough onto a piece of plastic wrap and press into a disc.
Pop in the fridge to chill for an hour. The dough will be a little sticky, not to worry.
Once the dough has chilled, roll one half the dough on a floured counter or piece of parchment paper.
Roll the dough to about ¼ inch thickness.
Use a heart-shaped cookie cutter to cut the cookies.
Place the cookies on a parchment-lined baking sheet and bake in the oven at 160C for approx 12 minutes.
The cookies will have a little colour on the edges.
Once the cookies are baked, place them on a cooling rack. They need to be totally cool before you decorate them.
Decorating the Rudolph Cookies
Either melt the chocolate chips in a double boiler or at 10 second intervals in the microwave until melted.
Transfer the melted chocolate to a piping bag, with a small hole tip. The chocolate can make the piping bag hot to the touch. Wait for the chocolate to be cool enough before handing it over to a child. If you’re chocolate cools completely, you can always warm it up again.
Start by placing a dab of chocolate at the point of the heart and place a mini-Rolo as the reindeer muzzle.
Then add another dab of chocolate on top of the Rolo and press in the red candy. Rudolph’s nose is ready to go.
Next, add two dabs of chocolate to secure the eyes in place. Don’t worry if you drip chocolate around the eyes – we thought the drips looked like eyelashes.
The finishing touches are the antlers. Pipe the antlers above the eyes.
Add the little colourful candies so that Rudolph has Christmas lights on his antlers. You don’t have to add the lights, he looks lovely with bare antlers.
Let the chocolate dry and then share the Christmas cookie joy.
Notes
If you don’t have mini-Rolo candies, go ahead an use the red candy alone. It means you won’t have a 3D muzzle, but that’s okay.