Ingredients:
For the cookies:
1) Plain flour - 3 cups (13 oz./375 g).
2) Icing sugar - 1 3/4 cups (8 oz./225 g).
3) Cold unsalted butter - 1 stick (4 oz./115 g), cut into pieces.
4) Water - 1 tbsp.
5) Egg - 1, lightly beaten.
6) Some extra icing sugar (for decoration).
Instructions:
1) Pour 1 cup of icing sugar into a bowl. Sift it with the flour.
2) Use your fingertips to rub in the butter until the mixture looks like bread crumbs.
3) Add the water and egg. Combine the ingredients of the bowl well to make a firm dough.
4) Enclose the mixture in plastic food wrap and refrigerate for about half-an-hour.
5) Turn up the oven temperature to 350 degree Fahrenheit (Gas Mark 4).
6) Grease two or three large baking sheets.
7) Next, take the dough out from the fridge. Knead this lightly until soft enough to spread out.
8) Spread out the dough on a floured surface to about 5 mm thickness.
9) Cut out various star shapes from the dough using six star-shaped cookie cutters of graduating sizes, from 1 1/2" (the smallest) to 4" (the biggest). Make two shapes of each size.
10) Lift the shapes onto the greased baking sheets and bake for 10-12 mins.
11) Take the baked stars away from the oven and cool for one or two minutes before laying in a wire rack to cool off completely.
12) Sift the remaining icing sugar in a bowl to make icing. Add in 2 tbsp. of water, little by little. The icing should be thick enough to quickly form a thick coating on the back of the spoon.
13) Use a pastry bag fitted with a fine nozzle to pipe icing around the edge of each cookie.
14) When the icing has set around the edges, fill the center of the cookies with icing. Dilute this a little by adding a few drops of water.
15) When the icing has nearly hardened, arrange the cookies into a tower keeping the bigger ones at the bottom and the smaller ones at the top.
16) Press these down lightly to let the icing hold these together.