Festive Orange Cinnamon Butter Biscuits: Your Go-To Recipe for Perfect Christmas Cut-Out Cookies

Discover how to bake crisp, buttery, melt-in-the-mouth orange cinnamon butter biscuits – the ultimate festive cookies that are perfect for Christmas cut-outs and decorating.

The holiday season truly sparkles with the aroma of freshly baked cookies filling the air. There’s an undeniable joy in the annual tradition of Christmas baking, transforming simple ingredients into edible works of art. This week, I’ve had immense fun immersing myself in the delightful process of making and decorating festive biscuits. While the decorating stage can be quite time-consuming, especially when striving for perfection across a large batch of cookies, I find it incredibly therapeutic. It’s a wonderful, relaxing way to spend a chilly, perhaps wet, afternoon, letting creativity flow with each stroke of icing.

Introducing Our Irresistible Orange Cinnamon Butter Biscuits

These orange cinnamon butter biscuits are destined to become a beloved and essential addition to your holiday baking repertoire. Imagine biting into a cookie that is perfectly crisp yet wonderfully buttery, dissolving delicately in your mouth. Each biscuit carries the quintessential hints of festive orange zest, providing a bright, aromatic lift, beautifully complemented by the warm, comforting spice of ground cinnamon. It’s a harmonious blend that perfectly captures the spirit of the season.

What makes these biscuits truly exceptional for holiday baking is their remarkable suitability for making intricate cut-outs. Unlike many cookie doughs that spread excessively during baking, these maintain their shape beautifully, ensuring your festive stars, snowflakes, and gingerbread figures remain distinct and sharp. The secret to their impressive stability lies in chilling and freezing the dough before it hits the oven – a crucial step that helps prevent any unwanted spreading. Furthermore, if you or your loved ones aren’t fans of traditional gingerbread, these orange cinnamon butter biscuits offer a fantastic alternative. They are distinctly lighter and more delicate in flavour and texture, providing a refreshing change from the spicier, denser gingerbread, without compromising on that satisfying festive feel.

The Art of Decorating Your Festive Butter Cookies

While these delicious orange cinnamon butter biscuits taste absolutely divine even un-iced, their perfect cut-out properties make them an ideal canvas for festive decoration. It would be a delightful missed opportunity not to adorn them with some beautiful royal icing! I personally love the timeless elegance and simplicity of plain white royal icing, which allows the intricate cookie shapes to truly stand out. However, if you’re feeling adventurous and want to add a splash of colour to your holiday spread, please feel free to experiment with food colourings.

A crucial tip for colouring royal icing: always opt for gel food colours over liquid ones. Liquid colours can significantly alter the consistency of your icing, making it too runny and difficult to pipe effectively. Gel colours, being highly concentrated, allow you to achieve vibrant hues with minimal addition of liquid, preserving the perfect piping consistency. Below, I’ve provided a comprehensive recipe for making royal icing from scratch. It uses fresh egg white, which yields a beautifully glossy and firm finish. However, if concerns about raw egg white are a factor for you, a pasteurised meringue powder or pre-made royal icing mix from a packet can be an excellent and safe alternative, offering similar impressive results. Whichever option you choose, the magic of decorating these festive biscuits is sure to bring joy and a touch of artistry to your Christmas celebrations.

Tips for Perfect Orange Cinnamon Butter Biscuits Every Time

Achieving bakery-quality festive biscuits isn’t as daunting as it might seem. Here are a few extra tips to ensure your orange cinnamon butter biscuits are nothing short of perfect:

• **Cold Butter is Key:** When making the biscuit dough, using cold butter is non-negotiable. Cold butter creates pockets of steam during baking, which results in that wonderfully crisp and tender texture. Avoid overworking the dough, as this can develop the gluten too much, leading to tougher biscuits.
• **Don’t Skip the Chill:** The chilling time in the fridge and the pre-bake freeze are vital steps. These periods allow the butter to firm up again, which dramatically reduces spreading in the oven, preserving the sharp edges of your cut-out shapes. Patience here will be rewarded!
• **Even Thickness:** Roll your dough to an even 4mm thickness. This ensures all your biscuits bake uniformly. If some are thicker than others, you’ll end up with a mix of perfectly baked and potentially underdone or overdone cookies.
• **Flour Your Cutters:** Lightly flour your cookie cutters before each use to prevent sticking, especially with more intricate designs. This makes lifting the cut-outs much easier and keeps their shapes pristine.
• **Cool Completely:** Always allow your biscuits to cool completely on a wire rack before attempting to decorate them. Warm biscuits will melt the royal icing, leading to a messy rather than a magnificent finish.

Serving Suggestions and Storage

These delightful orange cinnamon butter biscuits are versatile and perfect for various occasions. Serve them with a comforting mug of tea or coffee, or alongside a glass of mulled wine for an extra festive treat. They make fantastic edible gifts when packaged beautifully in festive boxes or cellophane bags, delighting friends, family, and neighbours. For holiday parties, arrange them on a tiered cake stand for an impressive dessert display.

Once baked and cooled, plain biscuits can be stored in an airtight container at room temperature for up to a week. If you’ve decorated them with royal icing, ensure the icing is completely dry and hardened before layering them with parchment paper in an airtight container. Decorated biscuits will also keep well for about a week, maintaining their crispness and flavour. For longer storage, both plain and undecorated biscuits can be frozen for up to 3 months. Thaw them at room temperature before serving or decorating.

If you tried this delightful recipe, we’d love to see your creations! Why not tag @domestic_gothess on Instagram and use the hashtag #domesticgothess?

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Orange Cinnamon Butter Biscuits Recipe: Craft Your Own Festive Delights

Print Recipe

5 from 5 votes

Orange Cinnamon Butter Biscuits

Course Dessert, Christmas Cookies, Festive Baking

Cuisine British

Keyword biscuits, cookies, orange, cinnamon, butter, Christmas, festive, cut-out

Prep Time 1 hour hour

Cook Time 10 minutes minutes

Chilling Time 45 minutes minutes

Author Domestic Gothess

Ingredients

For the Orange Cinnamon Butter Biscuits:

• 350 g plain flour
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 250 g cold, unsalted butter (or a good quality vegan block butter), cut into small cubes
• finely grated zest of 2 large oranges
• 150 g icing (powdered) sugar
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 large egg yolk (omit for vegan version – save the egg white for royal icing if using)
• 1-2 tsp milk/non-dairy milk (as needed, to bring the dough together)

For the Royal Icing:

• 235 g icing (powdered) sugar (thoroughly sifted to remove lumps)
• 2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice (and more as needed to adjust consistency)
• 1 large egg white (reserved from making the biscuits, or use 5 teaspoons aquafaba for a vegan option/pasteurised meringue powder as per packet instructions)

Instructions

For the Orange Cinnamon Butter Biscuits:

• In the bowl of a food processor, combine the plain flour, salt, the finely grated zest of two oranges, and the cubed cold, unsalted butter. Pulse the mixture until it reaches a consistency resembling fine breadcrumbs. This ensures the butter is evenly distributed and coated with flour, which is key for a tender biscuit. Next, add the icing sugar and ground cinnamon, then blitz again briefly to ensure all ingredients are well combined.
• Now, add the vanilla extract and the large egg yolk (if using). Continue to blend the mixture. The dough should gradually start to come together and form clumps. If, after a minute or so, the dough still seems too dry and crumbly, add milk (or non-dairy milk for a vegan option) one teaspoon at a time, blending after each addition. Be cautious not to add too much liquid; stop as soon as the dough begins to form a cohesive ball, as excess liquid can make the biscuits tough.
• Carefully remove the dough from the food processor and divide it into two equal portions. Shape each portion into a flattened disc. Wrap each disc tightly in clingfilm (plastic wrap) and place them in the refrigerator for a minimum of 30 minutes. This crucial chilling step allows the butter to firm up again, which will prevent the biscuits from spreading excessively during baking and makes the dough much easier to handle.
• Once chilled, remove one dough disc from the fridge. On a lightly floured surface, roll the dough out evenly to an approximate thickness of 4mm (about 1/8 inch). Using your chosen festive cookie cutters, press firmly to cut out shapes. Lightly flour your cutters between cuts to prevent sticking. Carefully transfer the cut-out shapes onto a couple of baking trays that have been lined with baking parchment, ensuring they are slightly spaced apart.
• Gather all the dough scraps, gently press them together, re-roll, and cut out more shapes until all dough is used. Place the baking trays filled with cut-out biscuits into the freezer for 15 minutes. This additional freezing step is vital for ensuring your biscuits hold their intricate shapes perfectly during baking. While the biscuits are chilling, preheat your oven to 180°C/350°F/gas mark 4.
• Bake the frozen biscuits for approximately 10 minutes. Keep a close eye on them; they should be lightly golden around the edges but still pale in the centre. Baking time can vary slightly depending on your oven and the size of your biscuits. Once baked, remove the trays from the oven and let the biscuits cool on the trays for 5 minutes to firm up before carefully transferring them to a wire rack to cool completely. This prevents them from breaking.

For the Royal Icing:

• Once your biscuits are entirely cool, it’s time to prepare the royal icing. Sift the icing (powdered) sugar into a medium-sized bowl to ensure there are no lumps, which could clog your piping nozzle. Add the lemon juice, then gradually stir in the egg white (or aquafaba/meringue powder mixture) a little at a time. Mix until the icing is smooth and thick enough to hold its shape, yet still pipe-able. A good test for consistency is to drizzle a small amount of icing back into the bowl; the pattern should gradually disappear after about 8 seconds. If the icing is too thick, add a tiny bit more egg white or lemon juice; if it’s too runny, gradually add more sifted icing sugar until the desired consistency is achieved.
• Spoon the prepared royal icing into a piping bag fitted with a very fine 1mm plain round nozzle. This small nozzle is ideal for creating delicate and intricate designs. Get inspired by browsing various patterns on Pinterest for snowflake designs, reindeer antlers, or elegant borders! Carefully pipe your desired designs onto the cooled biscuits. Once decorated, set the biscuits aside in a single layer on a cooling rack or baking sheet for at least half an hour (or longer, depending on humidity) to allow the icing to dry and harden completely. This will prevent smudging and allow for easier stacking and storage.