225g Tararua Butter, softened
115g Chelsea Icing Sugar (3/4 cup)
225g Edmonds Standard Grade Flour (1 1/2 cups)
115g Edmonds Fielder's Cornflour (3/4 cup)

TO DECORATE
38g Chelsea Icing Sugar (1/4 cup)
1-2 tsp water
32 small candy eyes
16 Jaffas, Ojays or red pebbles
16 cellophane bags (approximately 12cm x 15cm)
16 black or brown pipe cleaners

Preheat oven to 180°C bake. 

Cream Tararua Butter and Chelsea Icing Sugar together until pale and fluffy. Mix in Edmonds Standard Grade Flour and Edmonds Fielder's Cornflour, then knead to bring together into a dough. The dough should be firm enough to roll out immediately. If not, refrigerate for 30 minutes to firm up a little.

Take half of the dough and roll out between two pieces baking paper into a large circle about 4-5mm thick. Remove the top layer of baking paper, gently place a 20cm cake tin or plate on top and carefully cut around the outside. Remove the tin and the scraps, then slice the shortbread into 8 wedges (as if you were cutting a pizza), but do not separate them. Use the back of a fork to make indents all around the edge of the circle. Transfer the circle of shortbread (on the baking paper) onto a cookie tray.

Repeat with the second half of the dough. Use any scraps to cut out other fun Christmas shapes!

Bake for 5 minutes, until shortbread is just spreading and rising. Reduce temperature to 150°C bake and bake for a further 10 minutes, until shortbread is pale golden. Remove from oven and allow to cool for 5-10 minutes. Transfer to a chopping board and use a large, sharp knife to re-cut the shortbread wedges. Separate and transfer to a cooling rack to cool completely.

DECORATE
Mix Chelsea Icing Sugar and water together to form a thick paste. Use the paste to glue eyes onto the shortbread, then attach the red lollies as noses at the pointy end of each shortbread wedge. 

Once set, place shortbread in cellophane bags (noses pointing to the bottom of the bags). Gather the top of each bag together and secure tightly with a pipe cleaner. Shape the pipe cleaner to look like antlers. Labels can be attached to the pipe cleaners for gifting.


Recipe inspired by BBC goodfood.

Candy eyes can be found in craft shops or cake supply stores. If you can't find them, use white chocolate drops instead and pipe the pupil on using melted dark chocolate or black icing.

Wrapped shortbread will keep well for a few days.

For an alternative that uses less packaging, swap the pipe cleaners for pretzels and use the icing paste to attach these as antlers. Store in an airtight container.