Halloween Biscuits

 Perfect company for any movie nights in this week.

Halloween is the perfect time to get some more flood icing practice in and after some Easter biscuit decorating earlier in the year, this is continuing with a slightly different style.

If you'd like to know a little more about flood icing and decorating biscuits, I wrote about my experiments here.

What I Used:

Cookies Cutters [I picked mine up from Sainsburys]

Royal Icing and gel colouring [white, orange, green, black]

Plain Flour

Butter

Sugar

I love shortbread and for me, these are the perfect biscuits as they hold their shape, are easily made and have a texture perfect for icing [they *tend* to bake flat]! The quantity used depends entirely on the number of biscuits you want to create.  To make 8 large biscuits, I used 125g/4oz butter, 180g/6oz plain flour and 55g/2oz caster sugar.  Mix in a bowl until fully combined:

Begin to pack the mixture together to form your dough.  As you work with it between your hands, the warmth will help combine the dough.
For the biscuit shapes, I used a pack that I found in Sainsburys:
Ghost, Bat, Frankenstein and Pumpkin shaped:

Roll out your dough to around 1/2cm thick and begin to cut your shapes:

Lay them on a piece of parchment paper and leave to rest in the fridge for around 15minutes before popping into a 190 degree pre-heated oven.

Bake for 12-15minutes, depending on your oven - after 8 minutes, I begin leaving 2 minute alarms on interval to keep a check - once the edges start to brown, your shortbread is ready:

The biscuits will start to expand during the bake - if they lose their shape, use the cookie cutters to help trim off the edges and redefine any shape.  Ensure this is done whilst the biscuits are still hot, otherwise the crumbly nature of the shortbread will cause it to break and snap.

Leave the biscuits to cool completely and mix up your royal icing with your chosen colours. I use gel icing to reduce the amount of liquid added to the icing base and find that the colours are more vibrant.  If you are using lots of colours, I'd recommend making a large batch of plain royal icing to the consistency you like [it needs to be runny, but with a consistency that will allow it to hold in place when piped:

When icing the biscuits, I went in colour order - starting with white.  I made my outline:

...defined where the eyes would go and then started to fill with the icing:

I then moved on to black - outlining and filling the bat:

...and then added details to the pumpkin face and Frankenstein face:

...and finished the ghost by detailing the eyes:

Next, green - outlining and filling the Frankenstein face and detailing the pumpkin stalk:

Finishing with outlining and filling the pumpkin:

P.S - if your icing goes a little over the lines or runs over - you can remove and tidy this up with your finger - however; creating an outline first and allowing this to set really can help prevent this.

Once iced, if you are short of time [or impatient, like me] pop your biscuits in the fridge to fully set.

Your beautifully iced biscuits are done!  The icing and shortbread are a perfect match and neither overwhelms the other - it tastes awesome and they look pretty good too.

Perfect treats, Halloween gifts or stacked together for a party table:

More Halloween-themed treats?
How about Teacakes? Cupcakes? Apples? Mummified Marshmallows? or Specimen Jars?

see you next time x