Conjure up festive Christmas decorations with enchanting scents and wonderful flavours in your kitchen. Learn more about this here.
As the days get shorter and colder during the winter months, the need for cosiness and comforting scents at home grows. It is also an inviting time to take a wintry stroll with family or friends. You can use this time together to conjure up something new this year: Edible Christmas decorations. Not only do homemade decorations satisfy the yearning to eat some Christmas biscuits, they also fill your home with the comforting and familiar smells of the festive season. Learn more about the various options for handmade Christmas decorations here.
Every year, the nostalgic scent of Christmas biscuits stirs childhood memories once again and excites everyone who has a sweet tooth. Yet most people simply store the biscuits made with much labour and love in a cookie jar out of sight, and they are only noticed again just before being eaten. How about putting these Christmas delicacies centre stage this year? You can celebrate both the scent and taste of the Christmas biscuits, as well as their festive appearance, to enhance the Christmas mood at home.
A delight for all the senses – Christmas decorations made out of dough
The diversity of biscuit dough
Classic shortcrust biscuits are perfect for transforming into wonderful decorations for your Christmas tree or Advent wreath. Shortcrust biscuits can be turned into festive stars, Christmas trees and reindeer with the help of a cookie cutter. After they’ve cooled down, you can decorate the biscuits with colourful sugar icing, nuts or a chocolate glaze. Have you ever made a miniature Christmas tree out of biscuits? For this you’ll need at least six differently-sized star-shaped cookie cutters. Or you can harness your creativity and cut the dough into differently-sized star shapes by hand. The largest star forms the base of the Christmas tree. Then stack the remaining star shapes from largest to smallest on top, making sure that the points of the stars are slightly offset from the previous layer.
Place the dough in your Liebherr fridge for at least half an hour before working with it. The dough is very sticky due to the high fat content, which makes it difficult to work with. Cooling the dough gives it a certain resilience. The fat becomes firmer and the protein structure of the gluten relaxes, making the dough easier to stretch out. This is advantageous for rolling and cutting out the biscuits. If you want to use the biscuits as hanging decorations, make sure to make a hole anywhere in each biscuit with a toothpick before baking them. Then you’ll be able to hang the decorated Christmas biscuits on your Christmas tree, for example. You can also decorate your windows with biscuits too. To do this, hammer a nail in the wall and then hang several biscuits on a piece of string, one after the other. You don’t have any Christmas ribbon at home? Then just use kitchen twine! You can also integrate the biscuits into your Christmas wreath and liven up the dark greenery with bright colours.
Plenty of creative fun with gingerbread
The Christmas trio of red, white and green is a wonderful contrast to the colour of gingerbread. Cut out reindeer or Santa Claus biscuit shapes and decorate the gingerbread after baking and cooling however you like. The same applies here: Make a hole in the dough with a toothpick before baking so you can hang the gingerbread as decorations.
Would you like to spend the afternoon on an arts and crafts project? Then why not unleash your architectural creativity once again and build a gingerbread house! If you would like to focus on purely decorative elements, you can use a template from the Internet. Then you can be sure that the house will be stable. Gingerbread dough is well suited for this purpose, as the dough can be baked and used in large pieces. You can decorate your gingerbread house with classic features like white snow and colourful accents made out of sugar icing. You can use all manner of sweets for decorating. Have a look at what you already have at home. Nuts and raisins give the house a rustic touch.
Marzipan – edible Christmas baubles
Have you ever made marzipan baubles yourself? The baubles are very easy to make. You can also lightly dust the marzipan baubles with edible gold powder. The gold colour has an even more spectacular effect if you dip the marzipan baubles in white chocolate first – then the soft marzipan baubles will be reminiscent of traditional Christmas tree baubles. You can also integrate the Christmas tree baubles into your Advent wreath. To do this, thread the baubles with florist’s wire. If you want to use the baubles on your Christmas tree, thread cord through the baubles using a needle and knot the cord together underneath each marzipan bauble.
Citrus fruit and spices – the all-rounders at Christmastime
Citrus fruit start releasing their scent as soon as they are cut open. Make use of the aromatic oils of lemons, mandarins and oranges! Cut the fruit into thin slices and let them air-dry. You can hang the slices on your Christmas tree or at the window using string. The dried slices are also great to add to your Advent wreath, giving it a colourful touch.
Cinnamon sticks and cloves are two of the most classic Christmas spices and can also be used as decorations. You can stick whole cloves into oranges to create a completely natural Christmas aroma. You can also add cinnamon sticks to your Christmas tree or Advent wreath.
Upcycling edible Christmas decorations
Make sure you don’t make your Christmas decorations too far in advance, so that they will still taste good after they have been used as decorations. A maximum of two weeks before Christmas is a good time to ensure that the decorations will still be tasty later on. If you hang edible decorations on the Christmas tree or integrate them into an Advent wreath, make sure that the tree has been certified as organic. That’s because: Around two thirds of commercially-grown Christmas trees are contaminated with pesticides. Therefore, it’s only recommended to eat tree ornaments if you are using untreated conifers.
Decorate biscuits with a chocolate glaze to extend their shelf-life. The glaze prevents moisture escaping, keeping the edible Christmas decorations moist for longer.
Have your biscuits already dried out? Then use them for a Christmas dessert instead! For instance, crumbled biscuits give structure to a festive creamy sauce. Crumbled biscuits can also be made into a biscuit base for cakes when combined with butter. Gingerbread biscuits are also perfect for transforming into a traditional English gingerbread pudding. That’s because: This classic Christmas pudding is made out of leftover bread, dried fruit and spices which are cooked with water. You can let gingerbread houses dry out completely and use them as decorations next year. Would you prefer to savour the Christmas biscuits in their pure form? Then you can refresh the biscuits with the classic apple in a bag trick.
The citrus slices can be used as decorations throughout the year after they have dried out: As window decorations, in their skins as cake decorations or as extravagant gift tags. Decorative cinnamon sticks add a Christmassy note to punches, mulled wine or sauces at Christmas meals.
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