Smarties

Today is my nephew's second birthday and on Sunday the family all got together for a party. Alongside some great food, my sister made this birthday cake and birthday biscuits. Apparently between us all we scoffed 60 of these delicious biscuits from Nigella's 'How to be a Domestic Goddess'! They were fab and, as Nigella describes in her book, able to hold their shape during cooking while having a melting, buttery texture.

Butter cut-out biscuits
175g soft unsalted butter
200g caster sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
400g plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
300g icing sugar
Food colouring

1. Preheat oven to 180C

2. Cream the butter and sugar together until pale then beat in the eggs and butter.

3. In another bowl combine the flour, baking powder and salt then mix together the wet and dry ingredients.

4. If the mixture is too sticky to roll out, add a little flour at a time until it's the right consistency.

5. Rest the mixture in the fridge for an hour.

6. On a floured surface, roll out the dough to a thickness of about 1/2cm and cut into the required shapes.

7. Bake for 8-12 minutes or until lightly golden around the edges. Cool on a rack.

8. Put a couple of tablespoons of just-not-boiling water into a large bowl, add the sieved icing sugar and mix together. Add more water if necessary to form a thick paste and colour as desired.


I think my nephew had a great day and enjoyed opening his presents. And there was only one mini strop!

A bit later this afternoon i'm going to get started on tea for later- chickpea, chorizo, tomato and spinach stew from Rick Stein's Mediterranean Escapes.

In other news, the icing for the chocolate forest cloud cake finally set to the right consistency, so the final quarter can look rather nice while it waits to be eaten!