66 PARTY CAKES & BAKES Issue 29

1 Make the cookie dough, adding the food

colour paste when you add the vanilla.

Split into two portions and refrigerate for

thirty minutes.

2 Preheat the oven to 160°C/ 140°C fan/

gas mark 3. Line the baking trays with

baking parchment.

3 Trace the outline of the Christmas

stocking and then cut it out of thick card

stock to use as a template. (Cut out the

central rectangle as well.)

4 Working with one portion of dough at a

time, on a floured surface, roll the dough

5mm thick. Use the template to cut out

stockings, rerolling the scraps to cut out as

many as you can. You need multiples of

three, as each ‘surprise cookie’ is made

up of a set of three cookies.

5 Arrange the cookies on baking trays,

but turn one cookie out of every set of

cookies so it's inverted (toe pointing the

opposite way). Use the rectangle part of

the template to cut a hole out of every third

cookie. Bake until you just start to see the

cookies darkening around the edges, seven

to ten minutes. Let cool for ten minutes on

the tray, then transfer to a wire rack.

N O V E L T Y C A K E S

Elise says...Use a spoon to sprinkle the grated

chocolate so you don’t crush or melt it with your fingers.

7 Melt the remaining chocolate and

place into a zip-seal bag, cutting a

small tip off the corner.

8 Assemble the stocking sets so each

has a front, a middle and a back, with

the ‘baked side’ of the front and back

stockings facing inward.

9 Pipe a thin line of melted chocolate

close to the edge of the ‘baked side’

of the back stocking and then take a

middle stocking and place it on top.

10 Fill the stocking cavity with the sweets.

Do not overfill.

11 Pipe a line of melted chocolate on top

of the middle stocking and place the

final whole stocking on top, baked side

in. Pipe around the toe, heel and top

of the top stocking and immediately

sprinkle with the grated chocolate to

create a fluffy effect.

6 Grate 35g of the chocolate using a fine

grater and set aside.

"This layered technique can be adapteed to other cookie designs. Definately a trick to master"

Surprise Cake.indd 66 26/10/2016 10:07