VALENTINE'S DAY COOKIES

Who doesn't like receiving a nice sweet treat to celebrate Valentine's day? On Sunday I found myself in the kitchen deciding between cakes or cookies. In the end the decision was easy as I had a wonderful new book called "Biscuiteers Book of Iced Biscuits" It was full of great iced biscuits for every occasion.

They basic biscuit recipe could be adapted by adding different flavourings, however I decided to go with the basic Plain Biscuit Recipe. For the first time I was going to make royal icing using egg whites. I was eager to get started.

Everything, I'm glad to say, was simple. The icing a bit messy and sticky, but that's part of the fun. The hardest part was waiting for the biscuits to cool down before I could start icing. The icing wasn't perfect but quite acceptable. I was happy with the finished product and I knew my husband's colleagues would enjoy the fruits of my labour. I made up a basket for him to take to work. I also handed a few out to my neighbours. I was so pleased to see how happy this simple act made people feel. Smiles all around.



So here is the recipe you can try it out for yourself.

This will make 24 biscuits, depending on size.

350g plain flour
100g self raising flour
125g sugar
125g cold salted, diced butter
125g golden syrup
1 large egg lightly beaten.

Sift flours into bowl and add sugar. Mix well.
Add butter and rub in until fine breadcrumb stage is reached.
Make well in centre and add syrup and egg.
Mix until mixture starts to form a ball.
Put onto floured work surface and mould into ball. Divide into 2 and wrap and put into fridge for 30 minutes.
Roll out and cut out required shapes.
Place on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and bake for 14-18 minutes at 170c (350f) or until biscuits are starting to turn golden
Remove from oven and cool on a rack. They are fragile at this point so be gentle.

ICING
2 egg whites
450g icing sugar
Add icing sugar to egg

Whisk together, slowly at first the mix for 5 mins with electric whisk.

At this point you can divide the mixture up and colour as required.

I outlined the biscuits the flooded with a different colour. To flood you need to add some water, drops at a time until it is runny enough to fill in.
Any other decoration can be added as you wish. A steady hand seems to be the main requirement here.

In order to harden the icing set oven to 70c and pop decorated biscuits back in oven for 30 minutes. This will help biscuit from going soft and stop icing sticking to other biscuits. This for me was a great revelation I was always disappointed when my biscuits would stick to each other.

So a belated Happy Valentine's day to everyone and Happy Cooking.