We love these wreath cookies which are easily made even if you don’t have fancy baking equipment.  Wrap in cellophane and let your kids gift to friends.

What you’ll need…

Cookies

115 g baking margarine or butter 

1 C (250 ml) sugar

1 large egg

2 C (250 ml) flour

1/4 tsp (1.25 ml) salt

1/2 tsp (2.5 ml) baking powder

1 tsp (5 ml) vanilla extract or half a vanilla pod, seeds scraped out

Icing

100 g icing sugar
a few drops of warm water
green food colouring

Decor

Assorted candy decoration
food-safe glitter / sprinkles

To make…

Preheat the oven to 160 degrees C.

In a stand mixer beat the  butter and sugar until well combined, the mixture should be light in colour and fluffy. Add the egg and vanilla and beat in, stop the machine and scrape down the sides of the bowl.

Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt and with the machine on slow, add the flour mixture. Beat until the dough comes together.

Wrap in cling wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

When ready to roll,  flour your (or your helpers) hands as well as a sheet of baking paper. Place the dough ball onto the paper and flatten with the heel of your hand into a disk. Cover with another sheet of baking paper and use a rolling pin to roll the dough out to an even thickness all around – about 3-4 mm thick all round. The edges tend to be thinner so cut your wreaths closer to the centre of the dough. If possible cut on the sheet of paper you are working on and lift this sheet onto a tray to bake, this way you won’t need to lift the rings which can result in them losing their shape. *Note the colder your dough the easier it will be to work with.

Use a cookie cutter to cut rounds for your wreaths. Then use something smaller to cut the centre holes out. We used a piping nozzle!

Pop the tray into the oven and bake for about 10 minutes until a pale golden colour. These cookies are thin so can burn easily! Once cooked remove from the oven and allow to cool completely.

In the meanwhile make the icing. Place the icing sugar into a bowl and drop a few droplets of water in and mix. Do this in small batches as the icing can become runny quickly. Add drops and stir until you reach an icing consistency. Add in green food colouring until you reach a rich, green colour. Add decor and sprinkles and allow to dry.

Once dry, thread a piece of ribbon and tie to make a cute and edible decoration.