How to Make a Christmas Star Cookie Tree

This tree tower of Christmas cookies is simple to make and a delight to decorate. You can use it as a holiday buffet centerpiece or make several to give to friends and neighbors as seasonal decorations and treats. The building process is extremely easy, and even young children will be able to assemble a Christmas star cookie tree mostly on their own.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Star shaped cookie cutters in various sizes
• White icing
• Green food coloring
• Red hots
• Pastry knife
• Bakery bags
• Round platter
• Spatula

1. Bake a large number of star cookies. The exact number will be determined by the number of sizes of star cookie cutters you have and the desired height of the tree. A good number to start with is 10: 3 large, 4 medium, 2 small and 1 extremely small star. Once you have built a few "starter" trees, then you can build taller ones if you wish. If you only have one or two different sizes of star cookie cutter, then use the pastry knife to trim down the larger stars to create medium and small ones.

2. Let the cookies cool for 24 hours. This tree is held together by icing, so the cookies must be completely cool or the "mortar" will not hold.

3. Outline all of the cookies with green icing. Use green food coloring to tint the white icing, and place the resulting green icing in the icing bag. Select any tip you like for the bag. Make a thick icing outline around each star cookie. While the icing is setting, you can clean out the icing bag to use it again later. If you prefer, you can spread a layer of green icing across the entire top surface of each star cookie, but this can get a little messy.

4. Build your tree. Place a large dollop of icing on the platter and press the bottom of the largest star cookie on top of it. This will hold the base of the tree in place. Continue to stack the cookies one on top of the other, with a large dollop of icing under each to hold them together.

5. Rotate the stars about 30 degrees each time that you add another star so that the points of the stars look like branches. You should place the large cookies on the bottom, followed by the medium and the small cookies. Place the smallest star upright on the top of the tree instead of laying it flat like the others.

6. Decorate the tree with red hots. Use the icing bag to dab numerous little dots on the tree and then press a red hot on top of the dot. It will stick and look like a Christmas ornament. You can use any type of candies that you like to decorate the tree.

7. Let the icing set for 24 hours, keeping the cookie tree in a cool, dry location. Display your cake until you are ready to eat it.

Tips & Warnings

• You can use white icing instead of green to make your tree look like it came straight from a snowy forest.
• If you plan to eat your tree, then do not use craft icing. Make sure you use icing that is edible and does not dry so hard that you could break your teeth on it.