Christmas recipes
With the festive season upon us what better way to have some fun with your flatmates than getting creative in the kitchen? Whether you’ll have a flat Christmas bake-off or just fancy treating yourself, we’ve collated some traditional seasonal goodies that we see this time of year in the UK. And better yet, they won’t break the bank or take too much time away from your studies!
Christmas sugar cookies:
Let's kick things off with a classic—Christmas Cookies! Channel your inner baking wizard and whip up a batch of these yummy sugar cookies. Express your creativity with icing and sprinkles and see who can ice the best Santa or snowman!
You will need:
100g unsalted butter
100 g caster sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
300g plain flour
30g cornflour
Method:
1. Beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs and vanilla. Whisk sieved plain flour and cornflour until a dough forms. Roll on a floured surface into a disk of about 6mm thickness, wrap in cling film and refrigerate.
2. Heat the oven to 180C fan. Cut out cookies using your chosen cutter shape (use a glass for a circle cutter if you don’t have one). Place on a baking sheet and bake for 7-10 minutes.
3. Once cooled it’s time to decorate! You can use premade icing from the shop, icing pens or a mix of icing sugar and water, let the creativity go wild!
225g cold butter
350g plain flour
100g caster sugar
280g mincemeat
1 egg
Icing sugar (to dust)
Method:
1. Make the pastry: rub the flour into the butter (as if you were making breadcrumbs), then mix in the sugar. Combine the mix into a ball (don’t add extra liquid) and knead together.
2. Heat the oven to 180C fan. Divide the dough in half and roll it out. Using a cookie cutter or a glass cut out 18 circles to line a cupcake tray. Spoon the mincemeat into the pies and, using the other half of the dough, cut out some lids and cover each pie, seal by pressing the edges gently together.
3. Brush the top of each pie with the beaten egg and bake for 20 minutes. Dust with icing sugar once cool and enjoy!