These adorable festive biscuits are a fun and easy way to entertain the kids during the Christmas holidays. Get your little ones mixing, rolling and using their creative skills to decorate the melting snowmen, then enjoy tasting their masterpieces! The recipe makes a large batch of biscuits, so you could create lots of snowmen to gift to friends and family.

Ingredients (makes ~40 biscuits)
For the biscuits:
200g caster sugar
200g unsalted butter, softened
4 eggs
350g plain flour

For the decorations:
300g icing sugar (this will decorate approximately 12 cookies)
12 white marshmallows
Strawberry laces
Smarties or other small round chocolate sweets
A tube of black writing icing 
Orange food colouring for the nose


Method:
To make the biscuits
1. Beat the butter and sugar with an electric whisk for 3-4 minutes until light and fluffy.

2. Whisk in the eggs one at a time.

3. Add the flour a bit at a time (so it doesn't fly everywhere!) and whisk until the mixture comes together to form a dough.

4. Split the dough into two equal lumps. Place each piece of dough between two sheets of greaseproof paper, then roll to a thickness of around 5mm using a rolling pin.

5. Slide the dough onto two baking trays and place in the fridge to chill for 20-30 minutes.

6. Heat your oven to 200°C (180°C fan/gas mark 6).

7. Slide the dough back onto your work surface and take off the top layer of greaseproof paper. Cut circles using a 7cm round cutter (I used a mug).

8. Gather and re-roll any offcuts and continue to cut circles until you've used all the dough.

9. Transfer the rounds back to the baking trays on top of the greaseproof paper and space them 2cm apart. You will probably need to cook them in a couple of batches.
10. Bake for 8-10 minutes until they start to turn lightly golden.

11. Leave to cool on the sheet for five minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to finish cooling.

12. Once you've baked all the biscuits, now it's time to decorate! If you're planning to save some biscuits for later, place them in an airtight freezer bag or other container and freeze for up to three months.


To decorate the biscuits
1. Put the icing sugar in a bowl and add one teaspoon of cold water at a time until the mixture goes runny, but thick enough to coat the back of a spoon.

2. Use a teaspoon to spread a spoonful of icing onto each cookie, allowing some to drip down the sides for maximum 'melting' effect. Don't worry about making them look identical – each snowman will melt differently!

3. Put a marshmallow towards the back of each cookie.

4. Wrap a piece of strawberry lace around the bottom of the marshmallow to create a scarf.

5. Place two Smarties in front of the marshmallow for buttons.

6. Pipe eyes and a mouth onto each marshmallow, and arms onto the cookies. I liked giving some of my snowmen a shocked expression by just doing one black dot for their mouths!

7. Mix a little orange food icing into any remaining icing sugar (or make a bit more) and use a toothpick to add some to each marshmallow for a nose.

8. Allow the icing to fully set, then tuck in – or wrap them up in an airtight container for a special gift. They'll last for about a week, although the colouring from the Smarties may start to run into the icing, so it's probably best to decorate them the day or day before you plan to gift them.