Gingerbread Stars for a clear night

The thaw has come, the ice is almost gone, and I can see the grass in the backyard.  The days are warm, the sun is bright and low in the sky...but the nights are still bleeping cold! Clear clear skies tonight and I'm about to snuggle up with a mug of hot chocolate and a couple of gingerbread stars I made yesterday. 

I've been waiting for the couple of weeks before Christmas for what seems like ages...and I have been slugging away getting the baked goods for my Christmas gift bags ready and waiting...the cookie tins in the living room are getting HEAVY! Almost filled to the brim with cookies...just tempting me!!

Two of my most favourite Christmas time cookies are Grandma Kay's Shortbread   and anybody's gingerbread (no icing thank you).  I've already made the shortbread, they are waiting to be packaged up, and on Friday I turned my hand to making bite-sized gingerbread stars.  A move away from the traditional gingerbread men...for two reasons...first, I could get so many MORE stars out of the dough and second, well...I just wanted something a little bit different (but still Christmassy...you know?).

The recipe I used this year came from the Christmas issue of delicious magazine and I've made sure to write it down in my recipe book so that next year I'm not running around trying to find the gingerbread cookies recipe...which is what happened this year, hence the delicious magazine recipe rather than whatever one I used last year.