Alice In Wonderland's Biscuits..

I've been reading up about Glaze Icing alot lately, it's incredibly easy, you get a lovely glossy shine and with a bit of practise you can decorate biscuits relatively quickly - so what's not to like?! Therefore after a bit of Alice in Wonderland over the festive season, I give you her 'EAT ME!' biscuits, ta-dah!:

To Ice 20 biscuits or 35 bite-sized biscuits, You'll need:

• 1 x batch of Foolproof Biscuits cut into heart shapes
• 250g of icing sugar
• Food colouring of your choice (I use Wilton's food gels, but the choice is yours!)
• 30ml of water
• 40g Liquid Glucose
• Disposable Piping bag
• No.2 Piping nozzle
• Black Edible food Pen
• Edible glitter 

Pop your icing sugar, water and liquid glucose altogether in one bowl and give it a good beat together until it's completely mixed. This'll be a good upper arms workout, as the mixture will be quite thick due to the liquid glucose!

Add your food colouring of choice, a little at a time to build up the colour you want. 

When your happy, the consistency is the next step. Now if you've heard of Glaze Icing before, you'll have heard about the '10 second rule' - it sounds dreadful and hard to judge, but trust me it's very easy.

So continually stirring your icing, drag a ribbon of icing across the bowl and start counting. Exactly on ten seconds the strip of icing should have completely merged back into the rest of the icing. There should be no indent of it left!

If it is disappearing too quickly add a little icing sugar, mix in and try again.
If it is not disappearing on ten, add a splash of water and try again! 

When you've got yor icing exactly on ten seconds transfer to your piping bag with your nozzle in place.

Then carefully ice around the heart shape, so as to create a clear border. Leave to dry for a couple of minutes.

Starting up against the border, fill in the biscuit, gently squeezing out the icing and movng it across.

Repeat for all the biscuits and then leave to dry overnight. 

With your edible Ink Pen, careful add the 'EAT ME!'. Make sure you don't push down too hard on the icing - it will crack!

Dust with edible glitter to your heart's content!

There you have it, Alice In Wonderland's biscuits!

Troubleshooting..

• If you're struggling with the icing, set aside a couple of biscuits to practise on
• Be patient with the icing, only add extra icing sugar and water gently - a little goes a long way!
• Dont worry it your icing leaks slightly over the edge - when it's dried, trim off the leaky icing with a knife:

• Don't worry if you get a fingerprint on the icing - dust over with your edible glitter and no one will know better!

Foolproof Biscuits!..

It's taken me an age to perfect an easy, straight forward batch of biscuits that aren't burnt to a crisp / don't spread in the oven / aren't too thick / don't have a slightly strange taste - but this really is a foolproof recipe (hence why it works for me!)

They are really easy to make and are a very quick bake, so you really can't go wrong (I promise!) then decoraton is up to you - whatever you fancy!

To perfect your biscuit making repetoire, you'll need:

• 110g of Unsalted Butter (very soft)
• 100g of Caster Sugar
• 1 tsp of Vanilla Bean Paste - but Extract/ Essence work just as well!
• 1 medium sized Egg
• 210g of Plain Flour

You should get about 20 biscuits or 35 bite-sized biscuits out of this batch. 

Preheat your oven to 180c (fan oven)/200c/ Gas Mark 6.

Cream your butter and sugar together - either by hand or in a food processor.

Then add in your Vanilla Paste and whisk in your egg. Give it a good beat together and it should be well mixed (Don't panic if it starts to look a little curdled).

Stir in your flour and really mix it to bring it together.

Place on a lightly floured surface and gently knead so it comes together. add more flour if its sticking to you, but it should eventually be an easy to handle ball of dough. 

At this point, if you want to freeze it for use later - it'd be best to do so now. Then defrost it and use it as soon as it's returned to room temperature.

Roll out until its about half an inch thick (or thicker if you want a chunky biscuit).

Then cut out into your required shape and place on a baking tray lined with baking paper.

Pop into the oven for 8-10 minutes, but keep an eye on them - ovens differ alot when it comes to biscuits and you can lose your biscuit to the dark side if a minute or two over!

They should have a golden tinge around the edge - don't worry if they feel a bit soft, they harden up as soon as they've cooled down.

Leave to cool down for a couple of minutes then transfer to a wire rack until they are completely cooled down.

Pop them in your best biscuit tin and they'll keep nicely for up to a week.

Troubleshooting..

• If some of your biscuits are slightly browner than others, don't worry, no one will notice when they've been decorated!
• If they're burning before they're properly browning then turn down your oven or move them down a shelf 
• To prevent sticking when rolling out, use as much plain flour as you need to stop the sticking - it won't alter the texture too much.

Christmas Cake Decoration 2013 - Polar Bears decorating the Tree!..

  

The tricky bit of covering the cake is done (hooray!) -  the decoration of the cake is one of the best parts, you can keep it as simple as you like or  go all out. I always use the Christmas Cake as an excuse to get creative, the modelling is often quite simple - but just has to be built up over stages. 

To make the Polar Bears decorating the Tree scene on an iced and marzipanned cake, you'll need: 

• Sugarpaste in white, green, red, black and yellow 
• 25-50g of Icing sugar
• Black icing pen ( a foodie felt tip to decorate with!)
• Pink lustre powder
• Edible glitter
• Little cup of water

• Paintbrush - small one preferably if you can find one! 
• Star shaped cutter 
• A piping nozzle - any will do
• Coloured ribbon of your choice
• Headed pin or double sided sticky tape to seal your ribbon!
• Pair of Scissors

Form a ball of green sugarpaste and knead it gently on a surface lightly dusted with icing sugar to make it more pliable.

Then gently begin to squeeze the paste into a teardrop shape, by gently massaging the sugarpaste between your hands. 

When you're happy with the height of the paste ( which will be the height of your tree) begin to make small incisions in the tree and flick the 'leaves' upwards. 

Continue all the way down the tree, making the incisions thicker as you move lower down. 

Once you're happy with your tree, pop it to the side and start working on your polar bears! To begin, form a smooth ball.

Pinch the ball in the middle, so it is slightly narrower ( this will be the bear's belly!) 

Then create four little balls - our bear's ears and feet! 

Flatten out the edges of one side of two of the balls and dampen them with water ( using your paintbrush). 

Place them securely under the bear's body. 

Then using a sugar craft tool  or a knife, make indents on the feet. 

Colour these indents in with the edible food pen. 

Then make another slightly smaller ball and pinch the middle in, just like before - to create another bear belly.                  
                                           

Using water ( and a cocktail stick if required) place this ball on top of the larger sugarpaste torso, but at a slight angle, so we can pop the head on in a minute. 

Make another ball of paste and massage into it a slight snout shape. 

Using the end of your paintbrush, indent your remaining two mini balls and carefully colour the inside of the indentation with some pink lustre dust. 

Then pop the end of your paintbrush into the side of the sugarpaste head for the ears and then hollow out some eye sockets on your bear.  Using the reverse end of a piping nozzle, imprint a little mouth onto your bear. Then follow these lines with your black edible pen. 
                                                

Attach with a cheeky dab of water onto the lower bear. Use a cocktail stick  to secure it if it keeps jumping off! Repeat this process to make a second, slightly smaller head for the baby bear on top.

Then roll out a sausage of paste and massage two pieces into two 'S' shapes.

Make small but deep holes in the sides of the big bear and using water, place the arms in, also gluing the paws to the baby bear on top.

Repeat to make some out reaching arms for baby bear.

Then cut out a star with a small cookie cutter and secure to baby bear's arms with a dab of water.

Make little balls of black sugarpaste icing and gently push into the prepared holes in each of the heads.

Sketch on some expressive eyebrows and give your bears a little colour with some pink lustre on their cheeks! Then pop to the side.

Attach some little balls of coloured sugarpaste to the tree and dust merrily with edible glitter of your choice. I added some texture to the bottom of the tree, by making some of the cuts quite rough, this creates the impression of woodiness.

Give your iced cake one final rub over, as you decide where to position your bears and tree!

Place a bit of water on the icing surface and then carefully transfer the figures to where you want. I added some blue glitter around the bears, I truly adore edible glitter - so it was a no-brainer splattering it around the place, but the choice is yours!

Finally choose a ribbon you like and fasten it around the cake.

There you have it, two polar bears adding the final touch to their Christmas Tree! Enjoy!

Decorate your cake however you feel you want to, you can do all sorts of things - even penguins!

Troubleshooting.. 

• If bits and pieces keep falling off, use a cocktail stick to sneakily secure them in place, no one will see and it's ever so annoying when you've worked so hard, so make life easier! Of course, don't let small children eat the decorations if you've used them!
• If you don't have a paintbrush, use a cotton wool bud instead - works just as well
• Any colour from the sugarpaste that transfers to your hands will come off if you squirt a bit of lemon juice on them, be careful not to stain your lovely white icing!