Christmas... A time of loving, sharing, giving, and unicorn faeces.

It's Christmas! Now that you've eaten everything possible, and you're lying near-comatose on the sofa watching absolutely dire Christmas TV, I thought I'd treat you to something a little special.

Having run out of money for Christmas presents this year, I had to go all primary school on my loved ones and give the gift of baking. Now, I'm not going to be all modest and humble here - I bake like a boss, so realistically, my family and friends got a much better deal than they would have done if I had bought them socks and ties like the original plan. 

However, I just thought that, in the spirit of giving, and in the incredibly British Christmas tradition of showing off (I'm sure all of you will have had at least one of those "my family is so bloody fantastic we put Bill Gates to shame" letters) I present to you one of my proudest moments:

The Unicorn Poop Cookie.

The official label, because the Food Standards Agency required one, obviously.

Given to my good friend Lucy as a Secret Santa present.

Begin with six bowls full of e-numbers...

Chop into chunklets!

Roll into worms!

Stack the worms!

MORE WORMS!

WORRRRRMMMS!

RAINBOW WORMS!

Delicious AND scientifically accurate. Sometimes, you can have it all.

Roll into one giant worm...

Twist...

Make one end all pointy like...

...And coil into a perfect poo.

TA DA! Unicorn poo, fresh from the... arse oven?

Here you can see the addition of sprinkles, glitter and a very hungry gal.

And, of course, the recipe:

A few points:
American sugar cookie dough is used for this recipe. It's firmer and more workable than British cookie dough, which tends to be fairly gloopy, but you need a dough that will hold its shape and NOT SPREAD IN THE OVEN - or else you get the result of a unicorn with digestion problems.
I would also highly recommend gel food colouring - more expensive than liquid, but actually lasts SO MUCH LONGER, and you get beautifully vibrant and slightly hyperactive colours like this. Awesome.
I've also used US measurements (cups) because I realised that cups are so much easier to deal with than scales, but feel free to use an online converter if you prefer.
I also decorated with edible glitter (seriously guys, EDIBLE, don't skimp on this or you'll be spewing sequins for days) and sprinkles, but you can customise any way you like - silver sugar balls, stars, or just leave 'em plain. Up to you!

3 cups flour
1 cup unsalted butter
1 cup caster sugar
1 egg, beaten
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp salt


Preheat the oven to 175C.
Cream the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy.
Beat in the egg and vanilla.
Sift in the flour and salt.

Here's the tricky part:
Roll the dough out on a floured surface (you can also use wax paper).
Cut as evenly as you can into the number of different colours you're using.
Mix in the colours.
Divide each coloured piece of dough into about eight (you can do more, for smaller cookies).
Roll out each bit of dough into a worm about four-six inches long.
Add the next piece of dough (see pictures above) and so on.
Squidge all the bits together and roll into one big worm.
Twist the opposite ends with the flat of your hand in opposite directions to get a nice swirl of colour.
Pinch the end to make it pointy. This is the top.
Coil into a nice poo shape!

Bake in the oven on a greased tray for 6-10 minutes. They should be firm, browned on the bottom, but not the top.
Leave to cool, and then decorate to your heart's content!

Love you all, and a very merry Unicorn-filled Christmas to you all!

BONUS: