Iced Biscuits! Orange and cinnamon biscuit recipe and royal icing instructions!

One of the latest baking crazes are iced biscuits! So of course I thought I'd have a go! I made some orange and cinnamon biscuits, cut them to little heart and bunting shapes, then baked and iced them using line, flooding, and wet-on-wet royal icing techniques! You could make whatever shapes and designs you like! There are hundreds of different cutter shapes available cheaply in cook shops and online! You could also skip the orange zest and cinnamon, and instead add 1/2 tsp vanilla extract if you preferred!? These make great gifts, that can be very personal! I even made some bunting which could be used as edible decoration for a party! Let your imagination go wild!

Ingredients

300g plain flour

150g caster sugar

150g unsalted butter

1 large egg

1/2 tsp baking powder

Pinch salt

Zest of 1 orange

1 tsp cinnamon 

500g pack royal icing sugar

100 ml cold water

Gel food colourings 

Method

1. Put all of the dry ingredients, plus orange zest and the cold unsalted butter, cut into chunks, in a food processor. Pulse for a few seconds at a time until it resembles fine bread crumbs.

Holly's hints- the less you handle the biscuit dough the better! You don't want to be developing too much of the gluten in the flour and causing a tough, rubbery biscuit! The food processor is a great way of combining the ingredients quickly and lightly. If you don't have one however, gently rub the butter into the dry ingredients using your finger tips.

2. Add the egg and pulse until the dough just begins to come together.

3. Tip the contents of the food processor out into a lightly floured surface, and working as little as possible, lightly knead it together until it will form a smooth ball of dough.

4. Wrap the dough in cling film and chill in the fridge for around 15 minutes until firm. 

5. Roll out the dough onto a lightly floured surface until approx 5mm thick, again, handling as little as possible.

6. Use a sharp knife or cookie cutter to cut the shapes you wish.

Holly's Hints- if making round biscuits using a round cutter, take care not to twist the cutter before you remove it from the dough after cutting. This would seal the edges preventing rise in the oven.

7. Place cut out shapes on a baking tray covered with grease proof paper and chill in the fridge for 15 minutes whilst you preheat the oven to 160C fan.

8. Bake in the oven for 15-17 minutes, until pale golden brown.

9. Whilst the biscuits are cooking/ cooling you can make your icing. Put your royal icing sugar into a large bowl and add 80ml cold water. Stir with a spoon at first to avoid a cloud forming! Then whisk with an electric hand mix for a couple of minutes until smooth, glossy and holds it's shape in peaks but is soft enough to be piped. 

Holly's hints- You can add more water or some regular icing sugar to make it thicker or thinner. 

This will be the right consistency for piping outlines around your biscuits and intricate designs. 

10. Separate the amount you need for this job into smaller bowls and colour as desired with gel food colourings before spooning into disposable piping bags. 

11. Add a little more water to the remaining icing and whisk again, you are now looking for a looser consistency for flood filling the biscuits.

Holly's Hints- drizzle a little icing along the surface of more icing, the trail should only last around 10 seconds if you have the perfect consistency. 

12. Separate the remaining icing into smaller bowls, again colour as desired and pour into disposable piping bags.

13. Once your biscuits are completely cool and you have all your bags of icing ready... It's time to get creative!

14. Snip off the very end of the piping bags you need as you go, snipping more more or less to create thicker or thinner lines. Take the thicker consistency icing and pipe a line around the edge of your biscuits. 

14. Take a bag of the looser icing and pipe it roughly inside the border line you have just created.

15. Use a cocktail stick and small circular motions to fill in any gaps, and give the biscuit a little wobble to encourage the icing to flood into any gaps and lay nice and smooth.

16. Now you can use the wet-on-wet technique to create designs and patterns. This involves piping over your first coat of icing, with another colour of icing, the same consistency. Because both colours are still wet and if the same consistency, the second coat will sink into the first leaving a smooth, flat finish. 

You can try stripes and checks as above. Or polka dots as below. 

You could even create more intricate flower designs... 

You can also easily create a heart shape by running a cocktail stick through a polka dot... 

Or create marble effects by running a cocktail stick up and down across horizontal stripes...

17. Once you are happy with your designs, heat the oven to it's lowest setting, or around 50C, then turn it off and pop your biscuits back in for around 30 minutes to allow the icing to set hard. Or alternatively leave them to set over night. 

18. Once the icing is set you can then add more detail that stands up from the rest, by piping on more of the thicker consistency line icing. 

 

Once they are all dry, they are ready for nibbling!