What you’ll need
200g butter, softened
150g Sunshine Sugar Caster Sugar
50g vanilla sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla paste
1 egg, lightly beaten
400g The Healthy Baker Plain Flour
For the icing
500g icing sugar
5 tablespoon boiling water
few drops red or pink food colouring
Cream the butter, sugars, and vanilla in a stand mixer until combined.
Slowly add the beaten egg to the mixture and mix until well combined.
Add the flour and mix on low until a dough is formed.
Bring the dough into a ball and cover in plastic wrap. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.
Tip the dough out onto a lightly floured work surface. Dust the top with a little more flour and roll the dough out until it is about 5mm thick.
Use a medium sized cookie cutter (approx. 5-7cm) to cut out the cookies, placing on trays lined with baking paper. Bring the dough together and re-roll when necessary.
Use the end of a skewer or similar, to create a hole on one side of each cookie. Ensure there is room around the hole and it’s not too close to the edge or it may break.
Place the cookie filled trays into the fridge for 20-30 minutes. Preheat oven to 170oC.
Bake the cookies for 12-15 minutes, or until they are lightly golden around the edges.
Allow to cool completely on their trays.
Mix half of the icing sugar with 2 1⁄2 tbsp of boiling water until a thick smooth icing forms. If the icing is too runny add a little more icing sugar, and if it is too dry add a little more water.
In a separate bowl, mix the remaining icing sugar with 2 1⁄2 tbsp of water and a small amount of food colouring until you reach your desired colour.
Pipe around the edges of the cookies to give them a border, then fill in the centre of each cookie, ensuring you don’t cover up the gift tag hole. Smooth out the icing within the piped border as necessary with a small spatula.
Allow the icing on the cookies to dry at least overnight, but ideally for 24 hours in a cool well ventilated space.
