Steps

• In a saucepan, pour the milk, the vanillin, and heat until just before boiling. Meanwhile, in a bowl, place the eggs with the sugar and whisk until they become light and fluffy. Gradually add the flour and continue whisking until everything is well combined.

  

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  Pour the hot milk gradually into the egg and sugar mixture, stirring constantly with a whisk. Return everything to the saucepan and cook over medium/low heat, stirring continuously, until it thickens well.

  

• Transfer the cream to a bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and let it cool. You can also prepare it the night before.

  

• Soften the butter outside the fridge and mix it with the sugar using a fork until you get a soft cream.

  

• Add the eggs one at a time, do not incorporate the next if the first is not well combined.
  While still beating with the fork, add the cinnamon, the optional pine nuts, the grated orange peel, and mix well.

  

• Place about 450g of flour and the sifted baking powder on a work surface in a fountain shape, add the egg mixture inside.

  

• Mix the ingredients until you get a smooth, compact, and soft dough. If it is too soft, add the remaining 50g of flour and knead well.
  Let it rest in the fridge covered with plastic wrap for about half an hour. You will get about 900g of dough.

  

• Flour the work surface, divide the dough into 3 parts to work it better. Roll each part with a rolling pin until you get a thickness of about 0.75 inch. Use cookie cutters to cut out your cookies: I used tree and snowman shapes.

  

• Use a straw to make the balls on the Christmas tree and the buttons on the snowman.

  

• Bake at 356°F for about 10 minutes by placing the cookies on the baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Place the tray on the second rack from the bottom. If they are too light on the surface, move the tray slightly higher for the last two minutes of baking. You will get about 90 cookies, depending a lot on the thickness and size of the cookies.

  

• On a plate, place the blue gel food coloring, add the yellow liquid coloring (the kind in vials), mix, and then incorporate the powdered sugar. The doses are indicative; you need to obtain a mixture that should not be liquid but easily spreadable.

  

• With a kitchen brush, color the top of the cookies with the holes with the green coloring, while covering the bases without holes with tufts of well-chilled custard (I used a pastry syringe with a star nozzle, you can find the photo of the nozzle in the notes).

  

• To complete the decorations, color a tablespoon of custard with red gel food coloring. Mix well to get a uniform color.

  

• Sprinkle the colored surface of the cookies with colored balls, place it over the cookie covered with cream, and with a needleless syringe, fill the holes with the colored custard. I recommend not preparing them too far in advance; otherwise, the green color and cream will tend to soften the cookie.

  

• Dust the snowmen with powdered sugar, make the buttons with colored custard and the syringe, and use chocolate balls and sprinkles for the eyes and mouth. Use a little custard to stick them on.

  
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