Halloween Biscuits
As it will be Halloween soon I decided to share with you all a recipe based on an autumn and winter favourite of a lot of people...gingerbread!
This is quite a classic recipe but I'm going to show you how to make them into Halloween treats which everyone will love and I'm replacing the ginger with mixed spice as I personally find they have more depth in flavour. Of course you could still use ground ginger and make them like the classic recipe, it's up to you! I'll show you how I would decorate them and tips I have for people who aren't used to piping. Enjoy!
The Recipe: Mixed Spice Halloween Biscuits
For the biscuits (makes approx. 26):
- 350g plain flour
- 1tsp bicarbonate of soda
- 2 tsp of mixed spice
- 100g margarine
- 175g light muscovado sugar
- 4 tbsp golden syrup
- 1 egg, beaten
Preheat the oven to 190֯C/375֯F/Gas 5 and line a few baking trays with non-stick paper.
Measure the
flour, bicarbonate of soda and mixed spice into a bowl. Rub the margarine in
with your fingertips until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Next stir in the
sugar, add the golden syrup and the beaten egg. Mix until it forms a dough and knead
it a little.
Divide the
dough in half and roll out one half onto a floured work surface to about 5mm in
thickness. If half the dough is hard to work with, split in into smaller pieces. Cut out the shapes using Halloween cookie cutters (websites where you can buy them linked at bottom of post) and place them on a
baking tray, repeat with the remaining dough.
Bake in the
preheated oven for about 10-12 minutes until slightly darker around the edges
and leave to cool before transferring to a cooling rack.
For the icing:
While
the biscuits are cooling, make the glace icing by slowly adding water a teaspoon at a time to the sieved icing sugar
to make an icing which can be piped using a piping bag. If you wanted to flavour the icing you could use lemon juice instead of water and add food colourings to make the icing different shades. Decorate the biscuits when they’re completely cooled.
To decorate place the icing in a piping bag and squeeze all the icing down to the tip to remove any air bubbles and then snip the end. I hold the piping bag almost like a pen and keep squeezing the icing down to the tip after each biscuit.
I decorated many of mine by outlining the shapes and then added features like eyes on the witch or a mouth and eyes on the ghosts. If you're slightly more confident with icing you could add text such as "Boo!" as i did on some of the ghosts and moons or you could add words like "Trick or Treat!" to the biscuits which have lots of room e.g. the pumpkins. It's completely up to you!
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| Flour the work surface well so they don't stick |
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| Make sure they're completely cool before icing, otherwise it will melt |
For the icing:
- 100g icing sugar
- Water
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| Don't overlap the biscuits while they're cooling |
To decorate place the icing in a piping bag and squeeze all the icing down to the tip to remove any air bubbles and then snip the end. I hold the piping bag almost like a pen and keep squeezing the icing down to the tip after each biscuit.
I decorated many of mine by outlining the shapes and then added features like eyes on the witch or a mouth and eyes on the ghosts. If you're slightly more confident with icing you could add text such as "Boo!" as i did on some of the ghosts and moons or you could add words like "Trick or Treat!" to the biscuits which have lots of room e.g. the pumpkins. It's completely up to you!
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| Mixed Spice Halloween Biscuits...Ta dah!! |
Hobby Craft
John Lewis
If you liked this post, visit my full blog at:
https://littlechefbeth.blogspot.com
