Usually I’ve got one rule. Never start making Christmas biscuits before the 1st Advent otherwise you can’t stand them anymore when its actually the “big day”.  But as the Christmas market has already been up and running for over a week in Birmingham I decided that this year I might use it as an excuse to start earlier ;).

I found a picture of reindeer cookies on Pinterest and immediately thought that this year those are going to be the first biscuits of the year. I think who ever came up with the idea to turn a gingerbread man cutter around to make a reindeer must be a genius! That’s so clever. Here is my recipe for reindeer Christmas biscuits (and as they’re based on a basic biscuit dough they might be more of a winter biscuit).

Reindeer “Christmas” Biscuit Recipe

You’ll need:

  • 125 g baking vegetable spread (you can easily replace it with butter if you want to)
  • 125 g caster sugar
  • 1 egg
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 250 g self-raising flour
  • 1 tablespoon cocoa powder
  • some icing sugar and lime juice, or similar, for icing
  • a little bit of dark chocolate for decorating, or black icing if you want to use that instead
  • red M&Ms for the reindeer nose (I used peanut butter ones but every kind does the job)
  • gingerbread man cookie cutter

Lets get started:

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Mix margarine and sugar in a bowl with kneading thingies attached to your mixer (how are those things actually called?)

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Add egg and vanilla extract

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Mix cocoa and self-raising flour and add it to the wet mixture in small portions (I like to sieve it before adding but that’s up to you).

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Your dough will be quite sticky but that doesn’t matter at this point. That’s why the next step is so important. Wrap your dough into cling film and pop it into the fridge for at least 1 hour.

Preheat your oven to 160 C or whatever temperature you’re usually baking biscuits on (every oven is different!)

Roll out the dough on a floured surface and cut out your gingerbread men (ahh reindeer ;))

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Pop the reindeer in the oven for about 8-10 minutes (check them after around 6 minutes to avoid overbaking them). They should be slightly brown on the outside.

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Leave them on the baking paper to cool. They’re quite soft when you get them out of the oven but will harden up when they cool down.

Mix some icing to taste (I use icing sugar and lime juice but you can use water or lemon juice instead) and put it in a piping bag or normal freezer bag (where you cut an edge off).

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“Glue” the M&Ms onto your reindeer with some icing

Decorate your reindeer as you go.

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As you can see my reindeer were a bit smaller than in the original, besides that you can clearly see that I used a freezer bag. Seems like I have to get a proper piping bag (Christmas gift hink, hink ;)) and more training in decorating biscuits….

I would love to see how your reindeer turned out!

Happy Baking!

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Author

I’m San and I’m the voice behind Loopsan. I’m a scientist by day (oh-no nerd alarm ;-)) but at night I turn into a crafter with heart. I love to crochet, bake, travel, keep memories in photographs and love everything DIY.

6 Comments

  1. Hi,

    How many cookies can this recipe make?
    Merry Christmas

    Regards,
    Serene

    • San Reply

      Hi Serene,
      I made 24 but it always depends on how thick you roll your dough out :)
      Merry Christmas :)
      San

  2. Thanks San! Just made my dough today and chilling it overnight! Hopefully it succeeds!

  3. My dough came out a bit too wet and I wasn’t able to use the cookie cutter and I have to roll them into balls and hand press them. But it taste great and the kids are loving them! Thanks San

    • San Reply

      Great that your kids love them :) Maybe for the next time you can always add a little bit more flour when the dough is still too sticky even after cooling :)
      Have a wonderful Christmas :)

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