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These coconut stars are the perfect addition to your Christmas biscuit tin! These are extremely easy to make, taste great and look good! Win win!
These coconut starts are perfect with a cup of tea; soft, crumbly biscuits topped with coconut icing and decorated with desiccated coconut! The coconut flavour is this recipe is subtle and not overpowering at all, but you could always add more if you wanted (see below).
Coconut Stars Biscuit Dough
These coconut stars are extremely simple to make! You‘ll start by making a basic 1-2-3 Mürbeteig biscuit dough, a German staple for making Christmas cookies! Sugar, butter and flour are combined in a 1 to 2 to 3 ratio and brought together with a little cold water. You may also choose to add some flavouring to the biscuit dough at this stage, e.g. vanilla paste or essence. I just added a little vanilla paste to the dough to make these coconut stars, as I didn’t want too overpowering a flavour of coconut. You could, however, add some dedicated coconut to the dough or even use some coconut essence for flavouring! It‘s up to you and just depends on how strong a coconut flavour you would like!
Coconut Icing
Instead of making a classic water icing, which is made by combining icing sugar with water/lemon juice, I used a few tablespoons of tinned coconut milk to make the icing for these biscuits! Simply mix the two ingredients together until you reach a thick, spreadable consistency!
Don’t worry if you accidentally add too much of the coconut milk and the icing becomes running! The problem is easily fixed by just adding in a little more icing sugar!
To decorate, I added some desiccated coconut on top of the coconut icing! You can either sprinkle it over the top, or put it in a bowl and press the biscuits into the coconut, iced side down, to create an even coating on top. Finally, I also added a few silver sugar balls to the stars for a little extra something…
More German Christmas Biscuits
- Vanilla Crescents | “Vanillekipferl”
- Traditional Scottish Shortbread Recipe
- Gingerbread Men
- Hazelnut Shortbread with Dark Chocolate “Haselnussbrot”
- Chocolate Orange Crescents | Schoko Orangen Kipferl
- Coconut Macarons | Kokosmakronen
- Spritzgebäck | German Piped Christmas Biscuits
- German “Baumkuchenspitzen” with Rum
- Salted Peanut and Apricot Florentines
- Christmas Light Cookies
- Coconut Star Christmas Biscuits
- German Schwarz-Weiß Gebäck | Checkerboard and Pinwheel Biscuits
- German Lebkuchen (Elisenlebkuchen) | Traditional German Gingerbread
Christmas Coconut Stars | Christmas Cookie Recipe
Recipe
Ingredients:
FOR THE BISCUITS
- 100g caster sugar
- 200g butter, cut into chunks
- 300g plain flour
- 1 tsp vanilla extract (optional, or use a different flavouring of you choice)
FOR THE ICING:
- 125g icing sugar
- 2-3 tbsp tinned coconut milk
- 60g desiccated coconut
YOU WILL ALSO NEED:
- Rolling pin
- Star-shaped biscuit cutters (you can use different sizes if you have them)
Method:
- Start by weighing your sugar, butter and flour into a mixing bowl. Use your hands to work the mixture, squeezing the butter between your hands and incorporating it into the sugar and flour.
- Once the mixture is almost coming together, add in the vanilla extract. Add in some cold water, a teaspoon at a time, until the dough comes together. Briefly knead on your work surface for a minute or two until smooth.
- Wrap the dough in clingfilm and chill in the fridge for at least 1-2 hours before using (you can also leave it overnight).
- Preheat the oven to 180°C and line two large baking trays with baking parchment.
- Remove the dough from the fridge. If it is too hard to roll at this stage, give it a few bashes with the rolling pin. This will send shockwaves through the pastry and soften the butter again a little.
- Roll the pastry out until about 3mm thick. If you roll it out between two pieces of clingfilm you can avoid using too much excess flour (which will dry the dough out).
- Cut out star-shaped biscuits using your star cookie cutters. Place the biscuits onto the prepared trays. Re-roll any excess pastry and cut out more stars until the dough is all used up.
- Bake the biscuits in the preheated oven for 8-12 minutes until lightly golden. Remove from the oven and leave to cool on the trays for a few minutes to firm up, before transferring them to a wire rack to cool completely.
- Sift the icing sugar into a bowl and add 2 tbsp of coconut milk. If the coconut milk has separated into a liquid and solid phase, shake and stir well to combine completely before using. It may also help to warm the tin before opening by placing it on a heater/radiator (do not microwave though as the tin is made of metal!). If the icing is too thick, add a little more coconut milk and stir until smooth and spreadable.
- Spread the icing over the cooled biscuits, the scatter with or dip them in the desiccated coconut. If you have some, you could also decorate the biscuits with additional sprinkles.
- Wait until the icing has set completely before storing the biscuits in an airtight tin for up to three weeks!
