Pretty much every year, as one of the presents for my friends I make biscuits. They are so easy to make and they always go down really well. I have been making these biscuits from a recipe from a Good Food magazine cut out for as long as I can remember and they have never failed me. I thought that this time I would blog the recipe and a few pictures for you guys. I made them for Christmas presents but they can be made for any occasion or just randomly, besides by the time you read this it will be too late to make them for this Christmas!!
N.B I forgot to take many pictures of me actually making them but the photos that are there are all mine!
This recipe makes 80 biscuits but you can make half the batch by halving the ingredients at the start OR before you wrap the dough up and put it in the fridge, put one of the halves in the freezer instead and defrost another day to use another time! (this is what i did)
you will need:
250g unsalted butter, softened
250g caster sugar2 large eggs, lightly beaten
half a teaspoon of vanilla extract
500g plain flour
1 teaspoon of baking powder
Beat the butter and sugar together until fluffy and light. Beat in the eggs and vanilla.Combine the flour and baking powder in a separate bowl, then add to the butter mixture. Stir in, then work into a dough with your hands.
Turn onto a floured board and knead into a ball. divide the dough into two and flatten each piece into a rough disc and wrap in clingfilm.Chill for at least an hour.
Preheat the oven to 170 centigrade/ gas 3.
Place one of the discs of dough on a floured board and dust the dough with flour.
Roll the dough out to a thickness of 3-5mm and cut out shapes of your choice.
Place the shapes slightly apart on a non-stick baking tray and cook for 10-12 minutes or until lightly coloured.
Cool on a rack.
Repeat with the second disc of dough.
Decoration.....
These biscuits look great plain but even better decorated. You could do this by dipping in chocolate, icing them or just dusting with icing sugar or cocoa powder.
I used a simple white glace icing which is just made using icing sugar and water. You really have to estimate how much icing sugar you need depending on how many biscuits you made and how much you want to put on each biscuit. If you are just putting a teaspoon blob of icing like I was you should start with about 250g of icing sugar (for the whole batch) and just add more later on if you need it. To make it into icing you should use water that you have recently boiled, only add a teaspoon or less of water at a time (it needs a lot less water then you think!) until the icing is smooth. It should be thick enough that it doesn't run all over the place but runny enough that it will apply to the biscuit easily.
N.B if you are packaging your biscuits up as a present make sure that the icing is not too runny and that you leave the icing to set for a few hours or otherwise the icing will run!I blobbed a small amount of icing on each biscuit and then tapped it very gently on the table to even out the icing before sprinkling some red glittery sprinkles which i got from ASDA for about £2.00
I was making these for presents so I packaged them up in some presentation bags I got from Lakeland for about £3.50 (for 50 bags). Lastly I tied the bags up with some silver paper ribbon .
have an amazing Christmas and holiday!! please please comment and subscribe as a little Christmas present to us!
Merry Christmas and happy baking! lots of love Maddy xx
