Instructions

1. Cook the butter, sugar and golden syrup in a heavy-based pan, on a low heat until the sugar has melted. Turn off the heat, then add the baking soda.
2. Mix the flour with the cocoa powder. Sift half of this over the sugar mixture. Add the egg, stir it in, then sift in the other half of the flour.
3. Stir gently until you get a soft dough. Divide this into two portions. Wrap them in clingfilm, slightly pressing it down into a patty. Chill both disks for 4 hours, or freeze them for about an hour until you get a firm dough.
4. Preheat the oven to 180°C.
5. Roll out the dough on a lighly floured surface to 5mm thickness. Stamp out Christmas tree shapes. Do the same with the other portion of the dough, then use up all the trimmings too, by re-rolling & cutting them.
6. Place the biscuits onto a lined baking tray and bake for 10-12 minutes, then cool them on a wire rack.
7. Meanwhile, melt the white chocolate in a glass bowl over a pan of simmering water (the bowl's base must not touch the water) then cool.
8. Dip one side of the cookies in the melted chocolate, letting it drip back and creating lines like those on a tree trunk. Sprinkle them with dark chocolate chips, edible glitter, sugar, silver balls or whatever you like to make them look like a Christmas tree.
9. Leave them on a wire rack to set.
10. You can repeat the dipping on the other side if you want the cookies to look 3 dimensional.