Ingredients
Royal icing (1 quantity)
Method
1.Process flour, brown sugar, spices and butter until crumbly. Add golden syrup and egg, process until combined. Knead dough on floured surface until smooth. Wrap dough in plastic, refrigerate 1 hour.
2.Divide dough in half, roll each half between sheets of baking paper until 5mm (¼ inch) thick. Refrigerate 30 minutes.
3.Preheat oven to 180°C (160°C fan forced). Line oven trays with baking paper.
4.Cut 12 x 3cm (1¼-inch), 12 x 5cm (2-inch), 12 x 6cm (2¼-inch), 12 x 7cm (2¾-inch), 12 x 8cm (3¼-inch) and 12 x 9cm (3¾-inch) stars from dough, transfer stars to trays. You will need to re-roll the dough several times to get the correct number of stars.
5.Bake 3cm, 5cm and 6cm stars about 10 minutes and remaining stars about 12 minutes. Cool on trays.
6.Meanwhile,make royal icing. Sift icing sugar through a fine sieve. Lightly beat the egg white into a small bowl until mixture is just broken up (do not whip into peaks). Beat in the icing sugar 1 tablespoon at a time, until it reaches desired consistency. Using a wooden spoon mix in the lemon juice.
7.Assemble trees by joining each star with another same-sized star using a little royal icing. Ensure the points of the stars alternate. Still using royal icing to join, stack different- sized paired stars on top of one another, largest to smallest, to form six trees. Decorate trees by joining cachous to stars with a tiny dot of royal icing. Dust trees with sifted icing sugar.
You will have a lot of royal icing left over, use it for making snow on the trees, if you like.
Note
