Snowy trees

I find decorated cookies very beautiful, but I confess I don’t have the skills or the patience to make them: I can’t pipe to save my own life and because of that I believe that it would take me hours to finish making one single cookie. :S That is why I loved this recipe found in one of my old issues of DH magazine: the cookies look adorable, taste great and one doesn’t have to be very dexterous to apply the icing on them – I used a small offset spatula to do that but I believe that a small butter knife would do the trick, too.
Donna’s recipe was for snowy mountains – made by cutting triangles of cookie dough with a ravioli wheel – but I decided to go for snowy trees to use an old and forgotten cookie cutter.

Snowy trees
from the always glorious Donna Hay Magazine

Cookies:
1 1/3 cups (185g) all purpose flour
¼ cup (50g) granulated sugar
1 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest
½ cup + 1 tablespoon (127g) unsalted butter, cold and chopped
1 egg yolk
½ teaspoon vanilla extract

Meringue icing:
1 egg white
¾ cup (105g) icing sugar, sifted
2 teaspoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Place the flour, sugar and lemon zest in the bowl of a food processor and blitz to combine. Add the butter and pulse until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. With the motor running, add the yolk and the vanilla and process just until a dough starts to form (I had to add 1 teaspoon ice water to get the right consistency). Form dough into a disk and wrap in plastic. Refrigerate for 1 hour or until firm.
Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F. Line two large baking sheets with baking paper.
Roll out the dough until 5mm thick. Using a tree cookie cutter, cut the cookies and place them onto the prepared sheets (reroll scraps once). Refrigerate the cookies for 10 minutes, then bake until golden around the edges, about 12 minutes. Cool completely on sheets over a wire rack.
Icing: place the egg white in a small bowl and beat with an electric mixer until firm peaks form. Add the icing sugar, lemon juice and vanilla and beat until thick and glossy. Spread over the cookies (there will be some icing left) and return them to the oven for 4-5 minutes or until icing is set. Cool completely on sheets over a wire rack.

Makes 2 dozen using a 7cm cookie cutter