Biscuits are perfect for gifting as you can batch bake plenty in one go and have enough to give to lots of different people.
Makes 10-20
INGREDIENTS
FOR THE BISCUITS
- 100g sugar
- 200g butter/baking margarine
- 300g plain flour
- 1⁄2 tsp salt
- 1tsp vanilla paste/essence
- 2 tbsp milk
FOR THE ICING
- 600g (approx.) Icing sugar
- Food colouring (yellow, pink, orange)
- 200g butter
- Zest of 1 lemon
- 2 tbsp cocoa powder
- A few drops of orange extract Chocolate eggs, to decorate
- Dessicated coconut, to decorate
- Chocolate buttons, to decorate
- Edible eyes, to decorate
METHOD
1 Line two baking trays with baking parchment
2 Cream together the butter and sugar in a large mixing bowl.
3 Add flour and salt and mix together until very dry and crumbly.
4 Mix in the vanilla and milk until you have a stiff dough.
5 Dust your work surface lightly with four and roll out the dough to a thickness of about 5mm.
6 Cut circles with a round cutter.
7 Gather the scraps into a ball, re-roll and repeat the cutting process
8 Arrange the biscuits on a lined baking tray, allowing a little space between each one.
9 Chill for 10 minutes while you set the oven to 160 ̊C/Gas Mark 3.
10 When the oven reaches temperature, bake the biscuits for 14-16 minutes until they are golden brown.
11 Allow the biscuits to cool on the trays while you get started on the icing.
12 Make up a batch of piping icing using 200g icing sugar and about 4 tbsp water added gradually. Tip: piping icing should have the consistency of toothpaste.
13 Split the icing into 6 bowls leaving two white and colouring two yellow, one pink and one orange. You’ll only need a small amount of pink and orange so be sure to add more for the white and the yellow.
14 Fit your piping bags with a writing tip piping nozzle (you might need to ask a grown-up to help you do this) and pipe around the edges of your biscuits; white for the bunnies (and the smaller bunny feet) and yellow for the chicks.
15 Leave the icing to set for 5 minutes, then add a tbsp more water to your second bowls of white and yellow icing to create a flooding consistency that is thick but runs off a spoon. Pour the icing into new piping bags and fill the centre of the biscuits pushing the icing to the edges gently until it’s fully covered. Place the biscuits onto a lined baking tray and put into an oven at 100 ̊C/ Gas Mark 1⁄4 for 1 hour to let them set.
16 For the lamb and the nest biscuits, make up a batch of buttercream using 200g butter and 400g icing sugar. Split the buttercream between two bowls and add lemon zest to flavour your white buttercream and add 2 tbsp of cocoa powder and orange extract to make chocolate orange buttercream for your nests.
17 Fit one piping bag with a closed star piping nozzle and fill it with the lemon buttercream, and another with a grass piping nozzle and fill it with the chocolate orange buttercream.
18 For the lamb’s, pipe buttercream stars all over the biscuit then top with a chocolate button and edible eyes, followed by a quarter of a chocolate button either side for the ears. For the nests, pipe continually around the biscuits, building the chocolate orange buttercream up to form a nest. Fill the nest with chocolate eggs.
19 When the chicks and bunnies are set, decorate the chicks with some edible eyes then fit a piping bag with a small star nozzle and pipe on the beak and the feet with the orange buttercream.
20 For the bunnies, attach the bunny feet to the bottom of the circle and then pipe on the bunny paws with the pink icing and add a bunny tail with the remaining lemon buttercream. Finish the fluffy tail off with a sprinkle of desiccated coconut.
Recipe by Tala