Christmas butter cookies recipe

Mix the icing sugar, butter, vanilla seeds, lemon zest, sieved flour and two egg yolks and quickly work to a dough.

Wrap in foil or clingfilm and allow to rest in the refrigerator for 1 hour. 

Preheat the oven to 180°C (with fan). Line a baking tray with baking parchment. Divide the dough into four pieces and roll out one of the pieces to a thickness of approximately 3 mm. Cut out the cookies with the form you prefer. 

Chill the other pieces of dough until you are ready to roll them out. Mix the remaining egg yolks with 2-3 tbsp water and brush the biscuits with the mixture. Sprinkle with pearl sugar. Repeat with all the pieces of dough.

Bake in the preheated oven (middle shelf) for 10-12 minutes, or until golden brown, then cool on a cake rack. 

Using two different sized cutters cut out fluted or flower-shaped biscuits (approximately 6 cm in diameter), then cut out a plain hole in the middle. Place the rings on the baking tray.

After you baked all the biscuits, tie them together in fours (or more) with ribbons.