How to make advent calendar cookies

Don't want to splash out on an advent calendar this year? Caroline from Caroline Makes is here to show you how to bake one instead!

I don't think it's ever too early to think about Christmas - I love the festive season and start my present shopping pretty much in the January sales! But Christmas costs enough as it is so, if you'd like a cheaper alternative to an advent calendar, this set of cookie cutters from DotComGiftShop is just perfect for the project. You get six cutters - a tree, an angel, a bell, a star, a Santa hat and a candy cane - for just £5.95. What's more, the set comes with a ginger biscuit recipe on the back of the box, which I decided to use for my cookies.

Ingredients

•   350g plain flour
•   1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
•   2 1/2 tsp ground ginger
•   115g butter
•   175g light brown sugar
•   1 egg, beaten
•   4 tbsp golden syrup

Method

Sift the flour, bicarbonate of soda and ginger together in a bowl.

Work in the butter until you have a breadcrumb consistency.

Add the sugar and mix in.

Mix the beaten egg and golden syrup together and stir into the mixture to form a dough.

Wrap in clingfilm and refrigerate for 2 hours.

Preheat the oven to 180°C and lightly dust your work surface with icing sugar.

Roll out the dough and use the cookie cutters to cut out 25 shapes. 

The cookies only take around 10 minutes in the oven, depending on how thick you have rolled your dough. I recommend setting the timer for 8 minutes and then checking them.

They will still be a little soft when they come out of the oven but will harden as they cool. If you want to be able to hang the cookies on the Christmas tree, make a small hole straight after the cookies come out of the oven, while they are still a little soft. Transfer to a wire rack to cool.

You can decorate the cookies however you'd like. To make my advent cookies I used the cookie cutters to cut the same shapes out of fondant for the toppings: you can buy coloured fondant, or add food colouring to white roll-out icing. I also used royal icing, mixed with a few drops of water and food colouring in a piping bag, to pipe the numbers 1 to 25 on the cookies. Then you can decorate them with sprinkles and silver balls. They taste absolutely delicious!

Place each cookie in an individual cellophane bag, tie with ribbon and hang from the banisters or on the Christmas tree. Enjoy a cookie every day as you count down to Christmas!

DotComGiftShop has plenty more goodies to help you do your Christmas baking in style.