Christmas Tree Cupcake Cookies

My youngest son Samuel was desperate to get involved with the Christmas recipe creations and I'm super excited to share with you what he envisioned and helped us to create - they're AMAZING!

His vision was a cookie baked in cupcake mould, so it looked like a cupcake and then topped with lots of green icing to look like a Christmas tree and decorated with lots of tree decorations and of course, a star on top...

Don't you just love the imagination of a child

We gave it our best shot and this is what we have created and I'm pleased to announce that my boy was very, very happy with them...

The cookies are packed with yummy chunky white chocolate and they are perfectly soft and hold their shape perfectly.

These cookie cupcakes are easy to make, lots of fun to decorate, taste delicious and are perfect for the festive season....

Happy Baking!

The Chai Home 😋

INGREDIENTS

Makes 10

For the cookies

• 300g plain flour

• 130g of butter

• 100g of caster sugar

• 50g of light muscovado sugar

• 50g of demerara sugar

• 1 tsp of bicarbonate of soda

• pinch of salt

• 180g of white chocolate - use bars of chocolate and break into pieces, you want thick bars not Milky bars as they're too thin.

• 1x egg

• 2 tsp of vanilla extract

For the buttercream

• 200g of room temperature butter

• 400g of sieved icing sugar

• 1 tsp of vanilla extract

• 1 tsp of green food colouring (you can add more or less to achieve your desired colour)

For the decorations

• Use any decorations you like, but we chose to use red & green coated chocolate balls and mini stars.

METHOD

Preheat the oven to 190C, this is very important.

Add the flour, salt & bicarb to a large mixing bowl and mix together.

Add the chocolate, mix and put to one side.

In a small saucepan add the butter, sugars and vanilla and melt on a high heat. Stir continuously until everything has fully combined and then remove from the heat.

Add the egg to the melted butter, but move quickly mixing it together as you do not want the egg to start cooking.

Add to the dry ingredients and mix together well until all of the flour is fully combined. I do this with a spoon and by hand.

Once fully combined use your hands and form the dough into 10 equal balls and place into your cupcake tray ( we recommend using a silicone cupcake tray as they do not stick and the cookie can be removed easily, without the need of cupcake holders )

Pop on the top shelf of your preheated oven and bake for 18 minutes. They will still be slightly soft, but don't worry they will firm once fully cooled.

Once cooked remove from the oven, we leave them in the silicone mould until fully cooled.

While they are cooling go ahead and make your butter cream.

Add your room temperature butter & sieved icing sugar to your free-standing mixing bowl and mix on a medium speed for a couple of minutes.

Now add the vanilla and mix on a medium speed for 1 minute.

Add your green food colouring and mix until fully combined.

Add to a piping bag and use a star nozzle to pipe the icing onto each cookie. Keep some of the cookie exposed and pipe the butter cream taller than usual to create your tree.

Carefully decorate with your chosen decorations and carefully place your star on top.

Enjoy!

Merry Christmas!