Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy, then beat in the milk and vanilla
Sift the flour, salt, baking powder and cornstarch into the bowl and mix well to form a dough. You may need a little extra milk if using gluten-free flour
Cut the dough in half and flatten. Wrap in clingfilm or baking parchment and chill in the fridge for an hour. You can also at this stage put the dough in a freezer bag and freeze it for up to 3 months
Preheat the oven to gas 5/ 190C / 375°F and line your baking sheets with baking parchment
Take a disc of dough out of the fridge and let sit out for 10 minutes so it's easier to roll out
Dust a surface with flour then roll out the dough to a quarter inch thick and cut out circle shapes
Press the cake pop stick halfway up each cookie to make the indent shape then place on the baking sheets 2cm apart
Bake for 12-15 minutes or until golden brown then cool on a wire rack
To decorate I use ready roll icing. Colour the icing as you wish with a few drops of food colouring. Roll out and cut a disc the same size as you cut your cookies. Give the cookie a brush with some sugared water, put the cake pop stick in place with a little jam to keep it in place then lay the icing disc on top
Build up your design with more icing, edible decoration etc. For the santa suits I coloured some icing black and cut out a strip for the belt. I used a gold edible ink pen for the buckle and some sugar balls for buttons. Stick all the bits on with some sugared water to help them stick
For the snowmen I cut out different colour hat shapes and rolled little balls of orange icing into cones for the noses
These will work well for shapes like xmas trees, stars etc. They make a nice treat for the kids stockings. Put a small cellophane bag over the top and tie with a metallic twist tie
