Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C).
2. Line a baking tray with baking paper.
3. Place the flour, baking powder, cocoa powder, baking soda and sugar into the bowl of a stand mixer.
4. In a small saucepan, melt the butter and golden syrup (or light corn syrup) together.
5. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients, and mix until everything is well incorporated. If you don’t have a stand mixer, you could simply do this with a large mixing bowl and wooden spoon.
6. If the mixture looks too dry, add a dash of milk or water until everything comes together into a ball of dough. As there is no egg in this recipe, the dough will be a bit crumbly anyway.
7. Roll small pieces of dough into a ball, a bit smaller than a golf ball, or make them as large or as small as you like. I prefer to make them small as they will spread a bit upon baking.
8. Place the balls of dough on the baking tray, but space them apart as they will spread as they bake.
9. Flatten the balls of dough and gently form oval shapes. Don’t worry if they look cracked because they will become crackly upon baking.
10. Bake the cookies for 5 minutes and then remove them from the oven.
11. Immediately press two pretzels into each cookie to form the antlers. Use a clean tea towel to gently flatten each cookie.
12. Return the cookies to the oven to bake for a further 5-7 minutes, or until the edges look firm.
13. Immediately press one sugar-coated chocolate peanut into each cookie to form the nose. The heat from the cookies will melt the sugar-coated chocolate peanuts and make them stick together.
14. Leave the cookies to rest on the hot baking tray for about 5 minutes to firm up before removing them carefully to a wire rack to cool completely.
15. Melt the chocolate in a bain-marie, or in a bowl over a pan of simmering water. Place the melted chocolate into a heat-proof piping bag or a silicone decorating pen.
16. Dot a very tiny amount of melted chocolate onto each cookie to use as the glue for each candy eye.
17. If any pretzel has become dislodged, simply “glue” it back with some melted chocolate.