Recipe: Christmas Biscuits

Hello lovelies,
do you remember the cupcakes I made a few days ago? On the same day, I also baked some biscuits but they were only around for a few hours before me and Kev digged in... they were delicious! The recipe I followed (and tweaked a little) is actually taken out of a Christmas cook book, but hey, is it ever too early for Christmas treats?!

Christmas Biscuits (around 30, depending on the size of your cutters):

• 135g plain flour
• 65g unsalted butter (at room temperature)
• 65g icing sugar
• 1 egg
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/4 tsp lemon extract

Mix all the ingredients together, preferably with your hands, until everything is smooth and combined. Roll it into a little ball, wrap it in some cling foil and leave it in the fridge to cool and set for half an hour.

Now, onto the fun part! Sprinkle some flour on a clean kitchen surface or big chopping board and use a rolling pin to roll out the dough. If the dough sticks to your rolling pin, just sprinkle on more flour or pop it back into the fridge for a little longer - the colder the dough, the easier it will be to work with it. It's really important to roll out the dough evenly to ensure that all biscuits need the same time to bake, otherwise you'll end up burning the thinner ones or undercooking the thicker ones. Then, use your cutter (I had to use a glass as I couldn't find any in Tesco haha!) to cut out your biscuits, place them on a baking tray lined with baking paper, then roll out the leftover dough again, cut out more biscuits, and so on, until you used up all of your dough. Bake them in a preheated oven at 200°C for around 7 minutes or until the biscuits start turning slightly golden.

Leave your biscuits to cool completely before decoarting them - my favourite part! This is where you can go crazy! I kept mine quite simple though, covering half of them with a pink glacé icing and sprinkles, and the rest simply got dipped in melted milk chocolate.

For the glacé icing, you only need to mix some sifted icing sugar with a few drops of water until creamy, but not too runny (in that case, just add some more icing sugar). I added some drops of pink food colouring to make them look more fun - you could also add a little bit of lemon, almond or vanilla extract or flavourings, or whatever you fancy! Spoon a little bit of icing on your biscuits, add sprinkles and leave set and then ENJOY! :)