Reindeer Shortbread Chocolate Cookies

This festive season I’ve been quite into the idea of making gifts for people. There is just something so cool about being able to say, hey I made your gift with my own two hands now enjoy! So when the folk at MAIZENA asked me to come up with some ideas for their ‘Bake Your Festive Gift’ series I was in like flint.

During this time I’m going to share three ideas with you guys and if you’ve been following me for a while you’ll know that these won’t be hard to pull off. So get your aprons on and let’s bake.

First up I thought I’d make a batch of festive Reindeer Shortbread Chocolate Cookies complete with red noses and antlers. 

These biscuits are the type of treat that will have you elbow deep in the cookie jar every 2 minutes. They also make a great gift especially because the person can use the jar afterwards, perhaps to briefly house their own
Reindeer Shortbread Chocolate Cookies.

I also thought it would be fun to package them individually by making little folded envelopes out of baking paper which you can seal with some twine and greenery. You could actually use them to make name cards on your festive table 🙂 Pudding before the meal, the way it should be!

What you’re going to need to make these Reindeer Shortbread Chocolate Cookies.

INGREDIENTS:

1/2 cup MAIZENA cornstarch

1/2 cup icing sugar 

3/4 cup butter

1 cup all-purpose flour 

1/2 teaspoon Moir’s vanilla essence

225 grams chocolate, chopped  

1/2 cup Cream

Pretzels

Candy eyes 

1. Preheat your oven to 150°C. Line a baking tray with parchment paper.
2. In a large bowl or stand mixer, cream the icing sugar and the butter until light and fluffy.
3. Add the MAIZENA cornstarch and the flour and mix until the dough comes together. It will be soft and very silky.
4. Add the Moir’s vanilla essence and mix.
5. Roll the dough out on a lightly floured surface to 1/4-inch thickness. If the dough is too soft to handle, chill it for 30 minutes.
6. Take about a tablespoons worth of dough and roll it into a ball. Make sure the outsides are nice and smooth. Place it onto the baking paper and then using your thumb gently press down the middle of the ball to form almost like a well. You can also use the back of a teaspoon from a measuring set.
7. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes, the cookies should be just turning light golden brown on the edges.
8. Remove from the oven. At this point, I took the back of the teaspoon and gently pressed the centres down again to deepen the well.
9. Let cool slightly before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
10. In a small saucepan bring half a cup of cream to the boil.
11. Chop up 225 grams of chocolate then place it in a bowl before poring the hot cream on top of it. Using a spatula or wooden spoon stir the cream and chocolate until nice and smooth.
12. Let the chocolate mixture sit for at least 15 minutes. It should solidify nicely so that it leaves you with an almost fudge-like ganache. 
13. Once the cookies have cooled. Place about a teaspoon of ganache in the centre, add two candy eyes a red candy for a nose and a pretzel broken in half for antlers. Enjoy!