Ingredients:

• 125g butter, softened
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla essence
• 1 egg
• 2 cups flour
• 1 tsp baking powder

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180°C
2. Cream the butter and sugar, and then beat in the vanilla.
3. Add the egg, beating well, then sift the flour and baking powder together before stirring them into the mixture. Mix well.
4. Knead the mixture with your hands to ensure all ingredients are fully mixed together.
5. On a floured surface, roll out the dough out thinly. Then use a biscuit cutter to cut into rounds, and place on a greased baking tray or one lined with baking paper.
6. Continue to gather and roll out the remaining dough to form more biscuits. I managed to get 35 out of this mixture.
7. Bake for 10 minutes. The biscuits should only be very lightly browned.
8. Let the biscuits cool on the tray for a couple of minutes before transferring to a wire rack. Let them cool completely then make the following icing.

Icing:

1. Combine 1 cup of icing sugar, 1/2 tsp of vanilla essence, a tsp of butter, and enough boiling water to make the icing to the consistency you desire. – Be careful with the boiling water as it is very easy to make the icing to wet! You’ll then need to add more icing sugar to thicken it again.
2. Stir 2 tsp of Hundreds and Thousands into the mixture. Don’t try to scatter them on the biscuits afterwards, they mostly won’t stick and will instead scatter over the bench! I learnt this from experience. 🙂
3. Spread the icing over the biscuits and leave to set.

Note: If you feel like it, add a drop or two of red food colouring to give the icing the pink colour like the commercially made ones.

This article was provided by Ben Knowles – Editor / Operator @ The Upper Hutt Connection.

21/10/24