Super-Sweet Santa Cookies

Preheat oven to 180° celcius.

Grab a mixing bowl and beat butter and sugar together until white and creamy.

Add vanilla and whole egg to bowl and beat until well combined.

Add flour and baking powder in half cup measurements at a time until combined into one clumpy-looking mixture.

Dust your bench with flour.

Pour the clumpy mixture out of the bowl onto your floured bench and push it together into a big ball.

Cut the ball in half and shape it into two discs.

Roll the disc out to 1/2 cm thick and cut Santa shapes out of dough (for shapes, please refer to the above image. You can either freehand this or purchase a circular cookie cutter. Then repeat with the second disc. If not making a whole batch, the second half of the dough can be wrapped in baking paper and kept in the fridge. Any scraps can be pressed into a ball and re-rolled out so there is no wastage.

Carefully pick up shapes with a spatula and transfer them to oven trays lined with baking paper.

Bake for 10 minutes till the biscuits have a golden edge and the biscuit base is a pale golden colour. Take out of the oven and let cool completely on a tray before moving forward.

Mix the icing sugar and lemon together and add red food colouring until the mixture turns to your desired shade. Icing should be as thick as honey.

Using the above image as a guide, dip the top of the biscuit in icing to colour ‘Santa’s hat’. Allow the excess icing to drip off and place the cookie on baking paper to dry.

While still sticky, press a half marshmallow on top of the ‘hat’ to form a pom pom. Repeat until you’ve done this for all the biscuits.

Once the red icing is dry, place white chocolate melts in a small, high-lipped, non-metallic bowl, and heat up in short 20-3 second bursts until chocolate is soft and able to be stirred.

Dip the opposite side of the biscuit in the white chocolate to form ‘Santa’s beard’. Drain off the excess and place it back on your sheet of baking paper.

While sticky, scatter the chopped marshmallows onto the white chocolate to make the beard 3D. Repeat with all biscuits.

Next, drizzle a thick line on white chocolate where the red icing dip finishes on the biscuit. Then, press in chopped marshmallows to form the brim of ‘Santa’s hat’.

Then, dip a skewer in the chocolate and dot the middle of the cookie, where you’d like the nose. Press the pre-cut red parts of the strawberries and cream for the nose.

Next, using your skewer again, dot the chocolate on the biscuit for the eyes, and press two brown mini M&Ms above each side of the nose.

Allow biscuits to set and harden before serving!