It is Christmas again. I close my eyes and all that I could see is my mother in the kitchen baking these cookies. I am a small child again and I am allowed to help in the kitchen, gluing the cookies together with home made strawberry jam. But I am impatient, and eagerly run to the oven every few minutes to see the transformation taking place, and the small butter cookies growing tall and golden brown. It smells like butter and vanilla. It smells like Christmas.
My mother is still making these cookies home each year, but with me having settled far away from home having a taste is always a challenge. Yet, the nostalgic feeling of tasting Christmas on the tip of my tongue never fades away, on the contrary, with every year it is growing stronger. So, like a small bird intuitively compelled to travel distanced in reaching home, I bake Christmas Star Cookies and all is right and bright in the world. I am a small child and my parents far away are close by again. My loved ones are demolishing my creations eating two or three in one go, our home is full of laughter and my heart is full of joy.
Ingredients
Makes 30 cookies
- 500g self-raising flour
- 150g sugar
- 2 vanilla sugar packages Dr. Oatker
- 240g butter
- 250ml yogurt
- Strawberry jam
- Powder sugar for dusting
Method
1. Pre-heat the oven to 200C degrees. Cover the base of a baking tray with backing paper.
2. Put softened butter, sugar, vanilla into a large bowl and beat together until well blended and smooth.
3. Stir in the yogurt and gradually start to add the flour. Mix well, until the dough makes a ball and does not stick to your fingers.
4. Dust a handful of flour on a working surface. Roll the dough into a thin flat disc. Cut star cookies with a cookie cutter and place them on the baking tray.
5. Bake in pre-heated oven for 10 minutes or until golden brown at the edges. Lift onto a wire rack to cool.
6. Spoon a tea spoon full of strawberry jam on the inside of one cookie and place a second one on top, gluing the two together.
7. Dust with powder sugar all cookies and serve.
