Categories: April

Ingredients

• 280g plain flour, plus extra to knead
• 200g firm unsalted butter
• 300g icing sugar
• 2 egg yolks
• 1 egg white
• food colourings
• hundreds and thousands and edible silver balls, to decorate

Directions

1. Place the flour in a large bowl. Cut the butter into small cubes and add to the flour. Rub the butter into the flour until it makes fine breadcrumbs. Add 100g icing sugar and egg yolks and mix to a smooth dough, kneading into a ball. Cover and chill for an hour or it will be too soft.

2. Preheat the oven to 200˚C/fan 180˚C/gas 6. Grease two baking trays.

3. Roll out the mixture on a work surface dusted with flour until 0.5cm thick. Use a cutter to cut shapes out of the dough, place on baking trays and bake in the oven for 6-10 minutes until just golden brown. Allow to cool on a wire rack, then decorate.

4. Place the egg white in a bowl and whisk with a fork. Gradually whisk in the remaining icing sugar to make softly peaking icing. (It should be quite thick for piping.) Keep it covered with cling film or a crust will form on top. Divide among small bowls and add a drop or two of food colouring to each one using a cocktail stick so you don’t make the colours too strong.

5. Either spread the icing on to the biscuits and dip in hundreds and thousands, or pipe an outline of your design, or pipe small dots of icing and attach edible silver balls.

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