Recipe: Scandinavian Christmas Cookie Tree

Preparation

1. Preheat oven to 425ºF.
2. In a mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar; add vanilla, eggs and cream.
3. Sift in dry ingredients to creamed mixture; mixing well.
4. Chill the dough for 2 hours.
5. On a floured surface, roll out chilled dough.
6. Cut out the stars using 3 different sizes of stars (we used 5″, 4″ and 3 1/2″). Using a plastic straw, poke a hole in the center of each cookie.
7. Bake on ungreased cookie sheet for 6 minutes.
8. Let the cookies sit for 24 hours.
9. Decorate the cookies with icing. Let them sit for another 4 to 8 hours so the icing hardens and won’t smear when you start building the tree.
10. To assemble the cookie tree:
11. Using a wooden dowel, place one of the large cookies through the dowel and start stacking. Using the large cookies first, spiral them so the points do not align. Continue to stack largest to smallest.