Festive Chocolate Stars | Easy Christmas Baking

I am sure that you would remember that I had used only one portion of the dough when I made the Gingerbread man cookies. This is what I made with the remaining portion. The kids wanted some chocolate cookies and since the dough was ready, I made these cute cookies.

As mentioned in a post before, I always have some chocolate frosting in the fridge, so I used it to give the chocolate touch and the kids were enthralled by the beauty of the cookies. I was so pleased that the kids admired my handiwork!!

Makes 60 small stars

Whole wheat flour – 1 1/4 cups
Demerera sugar- 1/4 cup, tightly packed
Honey-1/4 cup
Unsalted butter, at room temperatures- 50 grams
Baking Soda- 1/2 teaspoon
Baking powder- 1/2 teaspoon
Salt- 1/4 teaspoon
Warm milk-as needed [ see note below]

Spice mix:

Cinnamon powder- 1/2 teaspoon
Black pepper powder- 1/4 teaspoon
Dry ginger powder- 3/4 teaspoon
Clove powder- 1/4 teaspoon
Grated nutmeg – 1/4 teaspoon

Cardamom powder- a large pinch

For the Royal Icing



Finely powdered sugar – 1/4 cup
Corn flour -3/4 teaspoon
Lemon juice – 1/2 teaspoon
Milk- 1-2 teaspoon / as needed
Red and green food colors – as needed

Chocolate frosting – as needed

Powder
the sugar along with the spice powder and keep aside. In a bowl take
the whole wheat flour and add the baking soda, baking powder, salt and
mix well.

Cream butter with the sugar till nice and fluffy. Add honey and beat for a minute

 Now add the flour mixture into the butter mixture and form a smooth non
sticky dough.I added a little warm milk to as the mixture was a bit
dry. Maybe it was because I used whole wheat flour. So, when you make
the dough see if it is ok or dry and then add milk if needed. Form a
ball of the dough and cling wrap it and let it sit in the fridge for at
least an hour

After an hour [two days later, as in my case!], take out a small
portion of the dough and roll it out uniformly. If it is rolled too
thick, the cookies will be chewy. If it is too thin, it will bake too
fast and burn.Using a star shaped cookie cutter, punch out shapes.

Transfer them onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.Arrange the stars leaving a little space in between. Bake in a pre heated oven at 180 degree C for 10 minutes[see note
below]. Once the bottom of the cookie is brown, remove from oven and
place on a cooling rack and allow to cool completely. Repeat for the
remaining dough.

For the royal icing, take the sugar, corn flour in a bowl and whisk well.

Add lemon juice and mix. Then add milk drop by drop to get a slightly
thick yet flowing paste. Divide into three parts and add red and green
food color to two of them.

Pack them into small cones which have a very small opening / nozzle. Pipe outlines with colors of your choice.Once it dries, spread a little of the frosting and decorate with colored sprinkles, sugar balls etc.

Note:

• I used a little warm milk to knead the cookie dough as it was a bit dry.The quantity of milk will depend on the type / quality of flour used.
• The number of cookies for this quantity of dough will depend on the
  size of the cookie cutter and also the thickness of the rolled dough.
• The baking time will also vary with the size of the cookies and the thickness.
• The cookies will be soft as soon as they come out of the oven and
  will turn crisp after they cool.Else bake again for a few more minutes. 
• Use finely powdered sugar for the Royal icing else you won’t be able to pipe out the decorations.
• Start decorating the cookies after they have cooled completely
• Start with a very small tip while piping.This also depends on how small / large your cookie is.
• You can make the dough the previous day ,bake it a day or two later
  and finish the icing a couple of days later!That’s exactly what I did! 
• After a few days in the box, the un-iced cookies turned a little soft.I baked them again for 3 minutes and they turned crisp.
• I used only half of this dough. I cling wrapped the remaining dough
  and refrigerated it for a week and baked another variety of cookies with
  that dough.The dough was good!
• You can use any shape of cookie cutter.
• Adding a couple of tablespoons of cocoa powder to the flour will make it more chocolatey!

I have joined a group of friends in a baking event called
Bake-a-thon.We will be posting baked goodies on Mondays, Wednesdays and
Fridays all through December.Do take a look at what we all have baked!!

This is part of the Bake-a-thon 2016