This year I’m using a different recipe from normal, trying out the ATK recipe that uses a ‘reverse creaming’ method (ATK FamilyBaking p???). You add the sugar and flour to the bowl, then turn on the mixer and beat in the butter a piece at a time. Apparently this avoids forming gluten and so makes for a shorter, crisper biscuit.

The dough it then brought together with cream cheese and vanilla extract. After chilling the dough is rolled out and I made one batch of work cookies using the 3d-printed cutter I had made, and another batch for home with stained glass xmas trees, with half a boiled green sweet being used for the stain glass. Unlike previously where I’ve ground down the boiled sweet I just smashed in half and stood it in the middle of the hole. Both batches have a hole put in them for a tie to go through.

The cookies are indeed nice and short and crispy, and they certainly hold together well — none broke on the cycle in to work! The stained glass worked well to: so no need to grind things down in the future!