Place the flour, ground almonds and salt in a mixing bowl, and in another mixing bowl, cream the butter and sugar together with a whisk (or an electric one if you have one - it's much easier!).

Add the egg yolk and vanilla extract to the creamed butter/sugar and then fold in the flour mixture to make a dough. Shape the mixture into a ball and chill in the fridge for a minimum of 1 hour, but ideally 2.

After chilling the dough, pre-heat the oven to 170 degrees (Gas Mark 3) and grease/line two large baking sheets with greaseproof paper.

Lightly flour a large surface and roll your dough out until it is 5mm thick. Use small festive cookie cutters to cut out your cookies. If they are small cutters, you should get up to 40 cookies!

Arrange on the baking trays and bake in the oven for 12-14 minutes until lightly golden brown on the edges. Always take biscuits out of the oven BEFORE you think they're ready.

Allow to cook on their baking trays slightly before removing to cool further on a wire rack. You can now decide whether to decorate your cookies or leave them as is!