Pintrest biscuits

WARNING! If you leave these at arms reach of a child, they will grab before you get a chance to photo!

So whenever I look at foody things on pinterest there are reams and reams of beautifuly decorated biscuits. They always look incredible, in artwork and taste, and so inspiringly beautiful it makes me just want to get in the kitchen and bake. However many times I have tried to recreate these little wonders of art I just ended up banging a box of smarties on the biscuits instead. (Don't underestimate smarties on biscuits though - they are amazing!)

More recently though I have found a really simple recipe that takes no time at all, and the more I practice the better I am getting!

If you fancy looking at this fab web site called Fish Finger For Tea, there is a great basic butter biscuit recipe that I use all the time.

Here are the basics from it:

Ingredients:

• 200g butter, (I sometimes uses a supermarket cooking butter instead because its cheaper)
• 200g caster sugar
• 1 egg beaten
• 400g plain flour

Instructions:

1. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.
2. Add the beaten egg and a spoonful of flour and mix well. The flour will stop any splitting. Mix in the rest of the flour. The dough will be quite stiff. If you feel it’s a little too dry then add a splash of milk.
3. Wrap the dough in clingfilm and chill in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.
4. Once chilled, preheat the oven to 190c and line 2 baking trays with greaseproof paper. You may need to bake the biscuits in more than one batch.
5. Roll out the dough on a floured surface to about the thickness of a pound coin. Stamp out your biscuit shapes and place on the baking tray. Gather and re-roll any leftover dough until you have run out.
6. Bake for 8 – 10 minutes until golden brown. (In my electric oven 16 mins seems to be perfect. You might test and keep checking.
7. Transfer on to a wire rack and leave to cool.

Decorating with Regal icing (the roll out stuff):

This is one of the more simple parts, if you are going for a solid colour, like covering a heart pink, then you can buy coloured regal icing in the supermarkets. Roll it out to a slightly thinner thickness to your baked biscuit and use the same cookie cutter you used for the biscuit on the icing as well. Then I use a pastry brush and some water, paste the back and stick it on. If you want to go fancy and decorate the top there are lots of tools that you can purchase to help you. I have some icing tubes which work well for drawing or writing on top. You can buy reusable ones from most cookware shops or you can buy the filled icing pens at supermarkets.

 I would always have an idea of what you want to make, look through some pictures for a bit of inspiration but remember, even if they don't look exactly how you want, they should sure taste good and if you can sit with a cup of tea and enjoy them, that's all that matters.