Christmas biscuits recipe

1. Preheat the oven to gas 4, 180°C, fan 160°C. Line 2 baking sheets with baking paper and set aside.
2. Add the flour, orange zest, mixed spice, sugar and butter to a large bowl. Rub together with your fingertips until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Add the beaten egg and mix to a stiff dough. Bring together with your hands into a disc, wrap in clingfilm and chill for at least 20 mins.
3. Roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface to 5mm thick. Cut out a mixture of shapes, such as stars, Christmas trees, snowmen or snowflakes with cutters. Bring any leftover dough together again, roll out and cut out further shapes. Transfer to the prepared baking sheets and chill for 10 mins until firm.
4. Bake for 10-12 mins (check after 8 mins if your shapes are small) or until pale golden. Transfer the biscuits to a wire rack to cool completely. The biscuits can be eaten plain, dusted with icing sugar, or try some of these colourful decorating ideas below.
5. For the icing, place half the icing sugar in a bowl, add 3 tbsp water and mix until it forms a thick paste. Place the remaining icing sugar in another bowl, add 3 tbsp water and the red gel food colouring and mix together to make a bold red colour.
6. Put the red icing in a piping bag with a small plain nozzle (or spoon into a sandwich bag and snip the corner off to make a small hole). Pipe lines around some of the cooled biscuits to make borders or snowflake patterns. Leave to set briefly. To flood the middles, add a spoonful of the white icing inside the borders and allow the icing to spread to the edges. Decorate with silver and gold balls and stars, as you like.
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7. Roll out some green and red fondant icing on a surface lightly dusted with icing sugar to 5mm thickness. Cut out shapes and use to decorate the remaining biscuits. Secure the fondant icing with a little runny white icing. Leave to set completely before serving. The finished biscuits will keep for up to a week in an airtight container.

Tip: Get ahead by freezing your biscuit dough. Make the dough, roll into a flat disc, wrap in clingfilm and freeze for up to 3 months. Defrost fully before using.

Freezing and defrosting guidelines (dough only)

In order to enjoy optimum flavour and quality, frozen items are best used within 3 months of their freezing date. For more tips on freezing and defrosting food, read our article Love Your Freezer.

See more easy Christmas baking recipes

How to prepare gluten-free Christmas biscuits?

You can prepare gluten-free Christmas biscuits with a good gluten-free recipe – either featuring gluten-free flour or with the flour replaced with gluten-free ingredients, such as ground almonds. Our vanilla and lemon ricciarelli biscuits are made with ground almonds, egg whites and icing sugar and make a great edible gift for Christmas. You can browse lots more gluten-free recipes for inspiration.

What is an easy recipe for Christmas biscuits?

An easy recipe for Christmas biscuits is one that doesn't require advanced baking skills, although most Christmas biscuits do involve some patience with chilling or freezing the dough before rolling out and shaping. You can make Christmas biscuits more easily if you stick to simple shapes and decorations like Christmas trees or stars – we have recipes for both, or try our robin gingerbread biscuits, which are a simple circle shape, no special cookie cutter required. For something a little more involved, our stained glass biscuits are so pretty and make great tree decorations.

How to prepare vegan Christmas biscuits?

To prepare vegan Christmas biscuits, you just need a tried-and-tested recipe that omits dairy and eggs and swaps in vegan-friendly ingredients. Take a look at our top vegan baking recipes for ideas or for something really quick and easy, decorate some vegan ready-made gingerbread to look like cute reindeer!

How to decorate Christmas biscuits?

There are lots of ways to decorate Christmas biscuits. This Christmas biscuits recipe uses a mix of fondant icing and piped icing. If you want something really simple, our Bakewell wreaths are not iced, but instead use glacé cherries and flaked almonds with a little sprinkling of sugar to finish. Similarly, our Christmas biscuit labels are dipped into melted chocolate for a simple yet effective decoration, while our Santa hat cookies use white chocolate and sprinkles instead of piped icing for the fur trims of the 'hats'.

Making spiced Christmas biscuits

Making spiced Christmas biscuits is a fun festive activity. The most popular spiced Christmas biscuit recipe is gingerbread and can be made with simple storecupboard spices. Our gingerbread people biscuits recipe uses ground ginger and cinnamon and all the family can help to decorate the biscuits. For a more grown-up recipe that doesn't require piping, try our gingerbread biscuits with spiced chai icing.