Homemade Christmas Snack

For the dough:
Sift the flour. Place the flour and salt in a large bowl. Mix. Rub the butter into the flour with your fingertips until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Next add approximately 1/2 of the egg yolk and the water. Mix well your hands. Try to work quickly.

Wrap the dough and chill for 10 -15 minutes.

Now take the dough and roll out into a 12 inch square that is about 1/8 inch thick, using a rolling pin. Cut it into round shapes (diameter 2 inches) using a pastry cutter or cookie cutter.

Put the pastry rounds into greased moulds (use butter or coking spray) and make sure the dough goes up the sides as well. I used moulds that were about 1.5 inches across, and had ridged edges (kind of like a peanut butter cup wrapper). Then trim off the excess pastry that goes over the edges of the mould. Prick the base with a fork to prevent air bubbles. You should have 12 moulds. You can use scraps of the dough and cut out strips – 1/8 inch width and 6 inch long. Fold each of the strips in half and twist strips together. You are basically making a spiral shaped decoration to place on top of the meringue. Place the decorations on the baking sheet as well.

Bake about 10 minutes at 200 c degrees or until the crust is light brown. Let cool.

For the meringue: Place the egg white and sugar in a bowl. After 5 minutes of whipping, add food coloring. Continue to beat the mixture until stiff and standing in peaks (use an electric hand mixer).

After that take the cooled pastry bases and get them ready to fill. Next put the meringue in a pastry bag with a piping tip and pipe the filling into the bases. I’ve done this in the photo above.

Next decorate the meringue by sticking the spiral piece of pastry in the top. I’ve done this in the photo above. Then if you want, you can place a candle on the top of the spiral and you can even take a small strip of paper and write your fortune and connect it to the candle.

Serve and enjoy.