Baking Biscuits!

Yesterday I decided to do some baking, and made a batch of heart biscuits and little round flower ones. Icing these was so much fun, and the recipe is super easy.

First I cut out the shape of a heart by folding a sturdy piece of cardboard into half. There are nice moulds available for this purpose, but I thought that this would do just as well.

I then made the dough from this recipe but substituting the chocolate decoration for a royal icing and water icing one.

Once the dough was ready I followed the instructions as on the C4 website, and baked a few batches of hearts and round biscuits. Whilst they were baking, I made my royal icing. You just beat one egg white until frothy, add a little fresh lemon juice, and then sieve in the icing sugar until it has a good consistency for piping your decoration. If too runny, add more icing sugar. If too thick, a few drops of lemon juice (not too much!) should do the trick.

Once the biscuits cooled down I decorated them. I just made up random designs as I went, but here’s some great inspiration in this Frisian traditional folk painting. I think I will be using some of these traditional motifs in a future cross-stitch sampler!

I piped my biscuits using these squeeze bottles that I bought from my local shop. They are ideal and far less messy than the traditional piping bag!

After I finished the last biscuit I made my water icing. I made this with the juice of half a lemon, icing sugar and a small amount of water. After mixing these all together to the right consistency (you want it a little runny) I added a few drops of natural red food colouring. The first biscuits had by then set enough for the water icing to be added. Once the icing is set they are ready to eat. I’m going to have a few this afternoon with a nice cup of tea!