Your children will love making – and eating – reindeer cookies

Christmas is a great time to get creative with the kids in the kitchen. Your little ones will love baking and decorating – morphing cookies into reindeer, baked potato into snowmen, and sausages into Christmas stockings.

Today we show you how to make Reindeer cookies. Toddlers and pre-schoolers will enjoy helping mom or dad with decorations, while older kids can help with measuring and mixing the ingredients.

Ingredients you will need

• 350g plain flour
• 2tsp ground ginger
• 1tsp cinnamon
• ½tsp mixed spice
• ¼tsp salt
• 1tsp bicarbonate of soda
• ½tsp baking powder
• 175g butter
• 150g light brown sugar
• 4tbsp golden syrup

For the decoration

• Mini chocolate bars
• Glacé cherries
• Smarties, raisins, or other small sweets
• Black writing icing pens

How to make them

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C (160°C fan). Measure the flour, spices, salt, bicarbonate of soda, and baking powder into a bowl.
2. Melt the butter, sugar, and syrup in a pan. Pour into the dry ingredients and mix. Lightly knead together to make a dough.
3. Form the dough into 10 balls. Pinch out one end of the balls to form a point, then flatten with your hand. Place on a baking sheet and bake for 12 to 15 minutes until the cookies are lightly golden but still slightly soft.
4. Using a skewer, make a slit on either side of the cookie heads for the antlers to slot in, then leave to cool for a few minutes. Decorate each cookie with lengths of mini chocolate bars for the antlers and halved glacé cherries for the nose. Take little sweets of the same colour for the eyes and dot with black icing for the pupils.