DIY Christmas decoration and more Christmas cookies to enjoy....

Christmas is upon us. Today I am going to share with you a Christmas decoration tutorial and two Christmas cookies recipes. 

Last weekend a dear friend (Gregous Food) was visiting us for a brunch invitation and surprised me with an amazing etagere. I do not know exactly what kind of magic etagere do have, but I am always fascinated by them and always eager to buy more of them. I have already couple of them home, but the one I got last weekend was a missing master piece in my collection. Etagere can be used for anything, not only for displaying cookies or cupcakes. They are a great asset on the table, decorating it with a certain elegance and style. 

As said, they can be used for anything and so I decided to use my new favourite etagere to decorate our house a bit for Christmas. There is not much you need to bring a bit of Christmas spirit to you home....one dear friend who surprises you with an etagere, some fresh fir-branches, bit of Christmas decoration, fir cones and candles (check here for DIY tutorial) and voila your home is filled with nice smell of forest coming from the fresh fir branches and relaxing light from the candles, creating enchanting Christmas atmosphere in your home....

Lemon shooting star cookies

• 50 g sugar
• 100 g butter
• 150 g flour
• half teaspoon baking powder
• zest and juice of 1 lemon
• coarse sugar

Put all the ingredients, except coarse sugar, in a food processor and blitz till a ball of dough will form. Add bit more flour if dough appears to be too wet, or a teaspoon of milk if the dough appears to be too dry. Wrap the dough in a wrapping foil and put it in the refrigerator for couple of hours. Preheat the oven to 180 C. Roll out the dough and cut out the cookies (any shape you want). Brush the cookies with an egg white and sprinkle with coarse sugar. Bake for 8-10 min, till the edges starts to get brown.

Vanilla shortcrust cookies filled with jam

• 100 g sugar
• vanilla sugar
• 200 g butter
• 300 g flour
• 1 egg
• marmalade
• powdered sugar

Put sugar, butter, flour and egg into the food processor and blitz till ball of dough will form (if you have rather a smaller food processor as I do, then do it in 2 bunches). Wrap the dough in a wrapping foil and put it for couple of hours into the refrigerator. Preheat the oven to 180C. Roll the dough out and cut the cookies with a round cookie cutter out. With a smaller cutter, cut additional circle (or any other shape) in half of the cookies, as you will put two cookies together in a later stage. Bake the cookies for 5-7 minutes, till the edges starts to brown. Let the cookies cool. Put some marmalade on a (whole) cookie then put the cookie with the hole on top. Dust the cookies with powdered sugar.

Enjoy!