Christmas Jumper Cookies

1. Preheat the oven to 180˚C (160˚C fan oven, Gas Mark 4). Line 2 large baking trays with baking parchment. Put the butter and caster sugar in a bowl and beat until well blended and creamy. Stir in the Vanilla Extract.

Sieve the flour, Bicarbonate of Soda and spices on top. Carefully combine to make a mixture that resembles a crumble topping and using your hands, bring the mixture together to form a firm dough. Turn on to a lightly floured surface and knead gently until smooth and pliable.

Roll out the dough to a thickness of ½ cm (¼ inch). Using an approx. 10cm (4inch) wide jumper shaped cookie cutter, cut out 9 shapes, re-rolling the dough as necessary. Arrange on the trays and prick with a fork. Chill for 30 minutes.

Bake the cookies for about 20 minutes until firm and lightly golden round the edges. Cool for 5 minutes then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Gently knead each coloured fondant one at a time and roll out on a surface lightly dusted with icing sugar cutting out 2-3 jumpers out of each coloured fondant – you will need 9 jumper in total.

Place the features onto the reindeer’s faces, using a tiny brush of honey to help them stick in place if needed.

Gently roll each icing jumper a little more to make it slightly larger to better fit the top of the cookies. Brush the cookie tops with honey and stick the icing jumpers on top. Set aside - if your cookies are for a gift, see note at end of recipe.

Put the Milk Chocolate in a small heatproof bowl and place on top of a saucepan of barely simmering water. Leave to melt, then remove from the water and leave to cool for 10 minutes. Spoon all but a teaspoonful of the chocolate into a small uncut piping bag. Keep the remaining chocolate over hot water to keep it melted.

Working on one jumper at a time, snip a thin piece from the point of the piping bag using scissors and pipe a reindeer head-shaped pool of chocolate in the middle of each cookie. Leave in a cool place to set for about 15 minutes.

Whilst the chocolate is setting make the features, use marzipan to make antlers by rolling a small sausage shape and cutting the end to make the antler shape. Roll a small ball of marzipan for the eyes and blob a tiny drop of chocolate to create the pupil. Roll a small sausage shape out of marzipan slightly bigger than the antler a bend to make a smiley mouth. Roll a small ball of red fondant for the nose. Make sure you have enough features for all your reindeers.

Place the features onto the reindeer’s faces, using a tiny brush of honey to help them stick in place if needed.