Chocolate Iced Biscuits
Perfect chocolate version of the traditional iced biscuits, ready for you to decorate with icing.
Equipment
- Greaseproof paper
- Biscuits cutter of your choice
- Rolling Pin
- Piping Bag
Ingredients
- 500 grams plain flour
- 250 grams unsalted butter
- 250 grams caster sugar
- 1 egg large (or 2 small-medium)
- 1-2 tablespoons cocoa powder depends on your preference
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- pinch of salt
Instructions
- Using mixer or a handheld whisk, beat the butter and sugar together until creamy and fluffy.
- Add the eggs and vanilla extract and mix until they are well combined.
- Add flour, pinch of salt and cocoa powder to the bowl and mix until all the ingredients just come together.
- The dough needs to rest before you roll it out and bake it. Wrap the dough in clingfilm and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.
- Roll out the dough into about 5 mm (or thicker - I used to make these biscuits at least 8 mm). To make this step easier, take two large greaseproof papers and roll out half (or third) of the dough between them.
- If you have the time, you can put the rolled out dough back to fridge before you cut out your biscuit shapes. This makes the dough much easier to handle and your biscuits are not going to expand too much when you get to bake them.
- When you are ready, use biscuits cutters to cut out your shapes and place (with plenty of space between) on a baking tray.
- Bake the biscuits in a preheated oven at 180C (gas mark 4) for about 7-10 minutes. The timing depends on the size and thickness of your biscuits, but the final colour should be darker brown. Leave them to cool on a cooling rack and store in airtight container until you are ready to decorate them.
- To decorate biscuits you can use fondant or liquid icing.
- The easiest way to decorate the biscuit is to roll out fondant icing to a thin layer and cut out the same shape as your biscuits. Then use apricot or other lightly coloured jam to brush the biscuit and stick the fondant on the top.
- To mix the icing, just use either water (or lemon juice) and icing sugar mixed to a thinner paste. If you are using the 'flood' icing technique you need to have even runnier icing.
- If I want my icing to be quite strong, I sometimes add egg white, but since the egg white is raw, you need to be careful if you are thinking of these biscuits for children.
- Depending on how much icing you need, mix smaller amount of your liquid with icing sugar and continue to add more icing sugar as you stir. I tend to just use mixing bowl and large soup spoon to mix the icing, but you could put all this in a mixer of you wish.
- Once you've mixed your icing, colour them to your desired shade. To get really vibrant colours, you really need to use proper fondant colours like Wilton or Sugarflair. They come in a small pots and are so concentrated that you only need a tiny amount to colour a whole batch of icing.
- Use a piping bag with a number 1.5 or 2 nozzle (or large if you want) or if you don't have piping nozzle, just cut your piping bag with a very small hole.
- I first pipe all my outlines and when dry I fill them with the flood icing. Once you've finished your icing, leave the biscuits to dry. This can take anything up to 24 hrs (they look dry after 2 hours, but that's just the top crust forming and the layer underneath is still soft).
- After that, they biscuits are ready to be packed, eaten or given away as a little treats and presents.
Notes
This makes about 15 large or 30 medium biscuits, so if you don't need that many, just half the recipe ingredients.
