Goddess Children's biscuit

[Guest guest]

As Vicki is freezing to the marrow on some market stall this morning,

thought I would take it upon myself to post this recipe to save her

the trouble when she is thawing out later today ....

Butter Cut-Out Biscuits

[NB - Need one hour to spare for resting and makes 50-60 biscuits -

Caro - also I think you can use a baking margarine]

175g soft unsalted butter

200g caster sugar

2 large eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

400g plain flour, preferably Italian 00, plus more if needed

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

300g icing sugar, sieved, and food colouring

biscuit cutters

2 baking sheets, greased or lined

She forgot to add - x children

Preheat the oven to 180 C/gas mark 4

Cream the butter and sugar together until pale and moving towards

mousssiness, then beat in the eggs and vanilla. In another bowl,

combine the flour, baking powder and salt. Add the dry ingredients to

the butter and eggs, and mix gently but surely. If you think the

finished mixture is too sticky to be rolled out, add more flour, but

do so sparingly as too much will make the dough tough. Halve the

dough, form into fat discs, wrap each half in Clingfilm and rest in

the fridge for at least 1 hour. Sprinkle a suitable surface with

flour, place a disc of dough on it (not taking out the other half

until you've finished with the first) and sprinkle a little more flour

on top of that. Then roll it out to a thickness of about 1/2 cm. Cut

into shapes, dipping the cutter into flour as you go, and place the

biscuits a little apart on the baking sheets.

Bake for 8-12 minutes, by which time they will be lightly golden

around the edges. Cool on a rack and continue with the rest of the

dough. When they're all fully cooled, you can get on with the icing.

Put a couple of tablespoons of just-not-boiling water into a large

bowl, add the sieved icing sugar and mix together, adding more water

as you need, to form a thick paste. Colour as desired: let the

artistic spirit within you speak, remembering with gratitute that

children have very bad taste.

Makes 50 - 60

Thanks, Nigella Lawson from Domestic Goddess book

Here is recipe for bel Karmel's FUNNY SHAPE BISCUITS

Makes 15-20 biscuits depending on size of cutters

[NB need a medium ripe banana and preheat oven to 200C/Gas 6 - C}

50g wholemeal flour

100g plain white flour

75g semolina

1/4 teaspoon each ground ginger, cinnamon, salt

75g margarine or butter

1 medium ripe banana

1 1/2 tablespoons maple syrup

cream cheese for spreading

a few raisins

Put the flours, semolina, ginger, cinnamon and salt into a mixing bowl

and rub in the margarine. Mash the banana well with the maple syrup

and stir into the mixture to make a smooth pliable dough.

Roll out on lightly floured surface and cut into shapes with biscuit

cutters. Bake on lightly greased baking trays in an oven preheated to

200C or Gas 6 for 20 mins until golden and firm. [i have pencil note

to look a couple of mins earlier - C] Cool on a wire rack.

If you wish, spread the cooled biscuits with cream cheese, marking

with a fork to represent the various animals' fur. Use pieces of

raisin for eyes and noses.

Hmmm don't any of these people have a really easy straightforward

recipe ... will have to have more searches around. Pooh Corner cook

book didn't have one either.

~ Caro

[Guest guest]

Thank you - children successfully entertained.

The Nigella recipe was v sloppy - I only had soft marg and had to add a

fair bit of extra flour - at least 50-75g. Even so the biccies were

pretty light and airy.

We painted them with melted choc instead of icing which went down well.

--

Sue

[Guest guest]

That'll teach me to read all the messages before I type! Actually typing

is the perfect exercise for thawing fingers...

Vicki - thermal bodysuit, longsleeved t-shirt, wool jumper, fleece, down

jacket, tights, jeans, hiking socks, walking boots, hat and gloves and

*still* cold on the market stall at 8:00am this morning!

At 10:14 10/11/01, you wrote:

>As Vicki is freezing to the marrow on some market stall this morning,

>thought I would take it upon myself to post this recipe to save her

>the trouble when she is thawing out later today ....