With only three ingredients for the dough, these cookies are so simple yet so good. Mom always made them with cake flour, but I’m running a bit low at the moment and don’t feel like sifting, so I decided to try a wholegrain version. I used freshly milled, ancient red wheat and love how they turned out.

The dough is simply butter, sour cream and flour. No eggs, no sugar, no raising agents. After chilling overnight, it feels gummy like and not at all like cookie dough, but the baked cookies are flaky and remind of puff pastry.

The amount of cookies you get out of the batch of dough of course depends on the cutters you use. I got 30 wreaths and 30 trees, plus a handful of tiny flours (the middle parts of the wreaths).

• 250g flour of choice
• 200g soft butter
• 150g sour cream

Mix the butter with the sour cream, then knead in the flour and keep kneading until you have a pliable dough. Wrap it in clingfilm and let it chill in the fridge overnight. Give it a short knead when you take it out and roll it into a sheet of 3mm thickness.

Don’t go thicker, the dough puffs up like crazy! This is before and after baking.

Brush the cookies with a bit of milk or cream and sprinkle with sprinkles or pearl sugar.

Bake at 190°C / 375F for about 12 minutes. The cookies are done when they’re all puffed up and slide off the cookie sheet.