Festive biscuit recipe that won’t let you down. These delicious cinnamon Christmas star biscuits keep for a few days without going soft and you can decorate them to your hearts content. You can even hang them on the tree. They make great gifts too.
To get us all in the festive spirit, assuming we need encouragement of course, I chose cinnamon for this month’s We Should Cocoa. I had a few ideas for this, but in the end I went for these spicy stars flavoured with honey.
This is a family recipe from Ren Behan which I’ve adapted over the years. It combines some wonderful ingredients which produce absolutely fabulicious biscuits, or pierniczki as they’re called in Poland. They are really quite different from the normal festive gingerbread type of fare as the recipe contains rye flour, honey and most importantly cocoa.
Rye flour gives a lovely texture to baked good. I rarely use it on its own, but added to other flours it makes lovely cakes, biscuits and of course, bread.
Liskeard Vintage Christmas Market
One of the sub groups of the Liskeard Portas Pilot (of which I was a member) organised a Vintage Christmas Market one year. It was a great success. Lots of people milled about dressed in vintage clothing, there were fabulous stalls, toe tapping live music, a cafe and a great turn out.
I had the pleasure of acting as stall-holder for The Gingham Chicken, a fine producer of delicious Liskeard Cornish fudge. It seemed like a good opportunity to make and sell a few festive treats myself. These cinnamon Christmas star biscuits were one of them.
Cinnamon Christmas Star Biscuits
As Christmas cookies go, these cinnamon and honey Christmas stars are pretty easy to make. You don’t even need to cream the butter and sugar together. Just melt the butter and combine it with all the other ingredients.
Once you’ve done that, the fun part begins. Roll and stamp out stars, bells, angels, hearts or whatever other shape grabs your fancy.
These Christmas biscuits Look pretty, have a perfect firm texture and taste of cinnamon and honey. They have a good crunchy biscuity texture and the warm and spicy notes are enhanced with a teeny bit of cayenne pepper.
What else could you ask for? Well there is an added bonus: the scent of of sweet spicy cinnamon lasts for days. Who needs air freshener?
I often make these as festive edible gifts or to go in my Christmas hampers. For the Christmas market, I made up eight packs of ten biscuits then tied them with a ribbon and a name tag. They all sold.
Edible Christmas Decorations
If you’d like to use these cinnamon Christmas star cookies as Christmas decorations, just poke a whole through one of the arms with a skewer before baking. You might need to redo the hole once they come out of the oven. They’re still quite pliable when they’re warm.
Once you have a hole and the biscuits are cool, thread some pretty ribbon through the holes and hang your stars on the tree.
You can, of course, ice the biscuits, dip them in chocolate or decorate in any number of ways. But I think they are pretty much perfect just as they are.
Other Christmas Cookie Recipes You Might Like
- Butter biscuits (matcha, chocolate & vanilla mix and match)
- Chilli shortbread biscuits
- Chocolate hazelnut crackles
- Orange & cinnamon white chocolate shortbread
- Pistachio chocolate biscotti
- Wholemeal clotted cream shortbread
Keep in Touch
Thanks for visiting Tin and Thyme. If you make these honey and cinnamon Christmas star biscuits, I’d love to hear about it in the comments below. And do please rate the recipe. Have you any top tips? Do share photos on social media too and use the hashtag #tinandthyme, so I can spot them.
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If you’d like more Christmas recipes, follow the link and you’ll find I have quite a lot of them. All delicious and nutritious, of course.
Choclette x
Cinnamon & Honey Christmas Stars. PIN IT.
Cinnamon Christmas Star Biscuits – The Recipe
Cinnamon & Honey Christmas Stars
Ingredients
- 110 g unsalted butter
- 110 g soft brown sugar
- 8 tbsp runny honey
- 225 g rye flour
- 225 g plain flour (all purpose flour)
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 2 tbsp cocoa powder
- 4 tsp ground cinnamon
- ¼ tsp ground cayenne pepper
- 1 large egg
Instructions
- Melt the butter in a small pan over a low heat with the sugar and honey.
- Stir until combined, then leave to cool a little.
- Sieve the dry ingredients into a large bowl. Make a well in the centre and pour in the butter mixture, followed by the egg.
- Stir the mixture together, starting from the middle and working out, until everything is just combined.
- Bring the dough together with your hands to form a ball.
- Cut this in two then roll out (one at a time) to the thickness of about ¼ cm.
- Stamp out about 80 stars, or your shapes of choice (this will depend on the size of your cookie cutters). You'll need to re-roll the leftover bits several times.
- Place the stars on lined baking trays about a centimetre apart and bake for 8-10 minutes at 180℃ (160℃ fan, 350℉, Gas 4). They should look baked but not brown.
- Leave on the trays to cool for a couple of minutes, then transfer to wire racks to cool completely.
- Decorate as desired
Notes
Nutrition Estimate
Sharing
These cinnamon and honey Christmas stars are my entry for this month’s We Should Cocoa.
As my alternative name for these festive biscuits is spicy stars, I’m also submitting them to Alpha Bakes where the letter is S this month. The challenge is hosted by The More Than Occasional Baker this week.
These Christmas cookies are, of course, made from scratch. So I’m also sending them to Javelin Warrior for his weekly Made with love Mondays.
Anaiah says
These star cookies are so beautiful! They’re such a great idea for gifts and to include in a basket. I’ve never made cookies with cayenne pepper, but I think we all need a little spice in life! Looking forward to making these!
Choclette says
Thank you Anaiah. We definitely need a bit of spice in life. But the chilli is only a small amount. It just give a little bit of oomph.
Fiona Matters says
These look just lovely. Honey and cinnamon are such a good combo too.
Hazel - Chicken in a Cherry Sauce says
I love the idea of these Choclette! They look very festive and I also love the idea of the free air freshening that comes with them 🙂
Baking Addict says
I love honey and cinnamon! The stars are the perfect festive touch – thanks for entering AlphaBakes.
The Caked Crusader says
Love how crisp the shape has kept, even after baking. very sharp!
laura@howtocookgoodfood says
I am keen to make some of these as extra little presents or rather my children to make them. I love the flavours and filling the house full of lovely cinnamon smells makes it all worthwhile . I am giving up on the cinnamon buns for WSC but have made 2 other possible entries. It just depends which one I decide to do before Christmas but I think I know , although I am going to be keeping words brief with so much else to do!
Kit @ i-lostinausten says
Lovely festive & flavorful star biscuits! I hope I can come up with something on time for WSC ! I’ve missed out a couple of this awesome event!
🙂
Fabulicious Food says
Yay I’m so pleased they turned out so well for you. I’m just about to make my first batch of the season! Thank you for the lovely mention and for making them again. xx
Chele says
They are picture perfect biscuits. And a fantastic way to use chocolate and cinnamon too. My compliments to the chef ;0)
Susie @ Fold in the Flour says
Look lovely and festive – great for Christmas with those spices! 🙂
Javelin Warrior says
I love gingerbread (cookies specifically) but these are so unique with the rye and chocolate and cayenne pepper. In fact, they look a lot like gingerbread cookies here in the US, but the ingredient list is so different (no ginger even). I’m sure the chocolate with the cinnamon and pepper is very tasty and what a great surprise for holiday guests! Thanks so much for sharing, Choclette!
Janice Pattie says
Very Christmassy
Sarah, Maison Cupcake says
Goodness you made so many of them! Great alternative to gingerbread, I’d love to try them.
belleau kitchen says
so beautiful C… and a lovely recipe too… I love that top picture too, really makes you want to reach in a grab a handfull… here’s hoping you bring a bunch on your visit eastwards xx
Alida says
wow! I love these! They look so beautiful and perfectly made. Adding cinnamon makes them certainly very Christmassy!
Рафаэлла says
Hello! Very beautiful gift. And thank you for this recipe.
manu says
Lovely combination honey&cinnamon…very Christmassy