Decorating gluten, dairy, nut and egg free Christmas mug cookies!

If there's one thing that takes me back to Christmas as a child, it's getting messy and decorating Christmas cookies and biscuits! Being gluten free or (allegedly) a grown up has not killed my love of this, and so that is what I set out to do!

If you gave me a cookie dough which was free from gluten, wheat, eggs, dairy and nuts, as well as being vegan, I would probably be sceptical. Call me a cynic, but I'm just being honest. So when I was sent some Angels and Cookies dough to try, I was very pleasantly surprised.

This cookie dough is free from 14 allergens yet tastes amazing. Unsurprisingly, despite the cut little cardboard tubs of dough saying they will make 50 small cookies (or six jumbo ones) I only got about 20 small cookies out of mine because I kept eating it raw!

I've been a little bit addicted to Pinterest of late and one of the things I spied on there were miniature cookies made to fit on the edge of a mug. So imagine my delight when, during the same week, I was sent this delicious cookie dough AND found these cutters reduced in Sainsbury's...

It was fate. So, as part of my Vlogmas challenge on Youtube (where I am TRYING to post a video every day of December, please come along and take a look!) I decided to use the cookie dough I had been sent to make some gluten free mug cookies which Steve and I could decorate.

I started off making these with the ginger and spice cookie dough, which was perfect for the festive feel. They looked and smelled amazing, but unfortunately, my dodgy oven decided to burn them in the 30 seconds between checking them, so half of them met a sad end.

I decided to try again with the choc chip cookie dough. I was worried they might lose their shape due to the chocolate melting but they didn't at all, and I think I preferred this flavour dough anyway! The spiced ginger one was nice, not too overbearing, but the smell of chocolate wafting through the kitchen as the second batch cooked was heavenly!

The next challenge was to ice them! This was hilarious and I can thoroughly recommend this if you have kids - or are just easily amused like Steve and myself! I just made some basic icing (about 400g icing sugar with 3-4 tbsp water stirred in until smooth) which I divided up and coloured. Some we piped, and some we slapped on crudely with teaspoons!

I will be the first to admit they look like they were iced by small children! But for the amusement and pure joy at just getting covered in icing and making a mess, this was a brilliant afternoon. And even better, they sat on the mugs perfectly, as planned.

I think these are a fantastic idea if you're having friends round, and would make a lovely home-made Christmas gift too. The Angels and Cookies dough made this SO much easier and I would thoroughly recommend it. The leftovers I either ate raw or made into two jumbo cookies which were amazing - melting chocolate chips and soft in the middle, heavenly!

You can subscribe to my Youtube channel and watch my whole Vlogmas series here. What is your favourite Christmas cookie flavour? Comment below and let me know or share them on my  Facebook, Twitter or Instagram pages – and please subscribe to my Youtube channel!