Gluten and Dairy Free Christmas Tree Spiced Biscuits

 

Updated post.

I wanted to re-share this post as I know lots of you made these Christmas tree spiced biscuits when I first posted ours yonks ago.

Quick, and super fun to make, bake and then decorate your tree in one full swoop, you guys must try them.

These are gluten and dairy free. Since first posting I’m now vegan and Oliver can’t eat eggs so I need to develop an egg free, vegan recipe.

My Dad, Oliver and I made them together 3 years ago now. I remember it was hard not to eat them all before Peter photographed them!

The second batch were scoffed too (what are we like?!) but the third batch made it as Peter and I baked them while the kids slept!

It’s wonderful to look back on these pictures as the kids were so young!

Word of warning, using gluten free flour even with Xanthan gum added for binding, still resulted in biscuits with slight crack marks, so we iced this batch to hide that fact and also because they looked more festive that way.

They’re still sturdy and won’t break, they’re just not perfectly smooth!

Edible, optional decorations are Waitrose’s own.

Ingredients:

Serves 24

• 300 g gluten free plain white flour (we like Doves Farm) and a little for dusting
• 250 g dairy dairy free vegetable spread
• 2 free range medium sized eggs, beaten
• 3 tablespoons honey
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 180 g unrefined golden icing
• 2 tbsp water
• Optional edible decorations and festive ribbon

Method:

Preheat oven to 180 degrees °C/ gas mark 4

Rub the flour and vegetable spread with your fingertips to resemble breadcrumbs or use a food processor. Add the eggs and honey to the mixture and the cinnamon. Whisk to create a mix.

Cover with cling film and leave in the fridge for 30 minutes.

Once firm, remove the dough.

Spread a large sheet of baking parchment over the work surface and turn the dough onto it. Dust with flour and then using a rolling pin, roll to a thickness of 0.5 cm. Cut shapes with a cookie-cutter of stars, bows and snowflakes or use a sharp knife.

Create a large hole for hanging (we used the end of a straw), make it bigger than you think  it should be as the hole shrinks when baking.

Lightly grease with a little spread a baking sheet and lift the shapes onto it and bake for 10 minutes until golden brown.

Remove from the oven and cool.

Mix the icing sugar and water and spread over the cool biscuits. Sprinkle edible decorations over. Leave to set.

Thread with festive ribbon or string and hang on your tree or eat.

Let me know if you make them and have yourselves a Merry Christmas! x

If you like this recipe, you might like my gluten-free honey biscuits.