Baking a fresh batch of these delicious, and easy biscuits could be exactly what you need to combat cabin fever while staying at home this Easter long weekend.
TAFE NSW Australian Patisserie Academy Head Teacher, Luigi Stivaletta said that his Easter biscuits are a great home-based learning activity for kids and a great way to pass time.
“The best thing about this simple recipe is you may already have most of the ingredients in your pantry, so you don’t need to worry about leaving home unnecessarily
“During these uncertain times, I love seeing people turn to baking to bring them comfort. It’s a fun family activity, and nothing beats the smell of freshly baked goods in the house.”
Easter Biscuits
Makes 8 biscuits
Ingredients
125g Unsalted butter
85g Icing sugar
1tsp Vanilla extract
2g Salt
1 Whole egg
25g Almond meal
20g Plain flour (A)
200g Plain flour (B)
Decorations
500g Ready to Roll (RTR) fondant
Pink food colouring
Yellow food colouringAlternative to fondant – Royal Icing
450g Powdered sugar
4 Egg whites
1tsp Lemon juice
Food colouring of your choice
Method
Preheat oven to 175 degrees.
Use a kitchen mixer or whisk to combine the butter, icing sugar, salt, vanilla extract and egg until smooth. Tip: you don’t want to over whisk, stop mixing once it reaches a cream cheese consistency.
Fold through the flour (A) and almond meal into the mixture with a spatula or wooden spoon.
Fold the remaining flour (B) into the above mixture.
Lightly knead the dough, then wrap it in glad wrap and pop in the fridge for 30 minutes. Tip: you do not need to overly knead the dough like you would with bread, simply bind the mixture.
Roll out dough with a rolling pin (thickness of 3-4mm) between two sheets of baking paper and using your cookie cutter, cut out shapes and place them onto baking trays lined with baking paper.
Tip: Don’t have an Easter egg shaped cookie cutter? Print out an image of an easter egg to your desired biscuit size, place on the dough and cut around the paper with a sharp knife.
Bake biscuits in oven for 10-12 minutes or until golden. Cool on wire racks.
Decorations
Time to decorate! RTR fondant is available in supermarkets, but if you’re avoiding leaving the house access to it you can easily make Royal Icing with ingredients you may already have in your kitchen, or you can dip the biscuits in melted chocolate. To create a marble effect similar to the biscuits pictured, follow these steps:
Separate the fondant into 3 portions. 1 portion should be larger than the other two. Be sure to leave aside enough fondant for your white decorative ribbons.
Colour the two smaller portions, one with pink colouring and the other with yellow. The largest portion remains white.
Roll the fondant out into log shapes. You want a large white log with two small, thin pink and yellow logs.
Begin twisting the fondant logs. Bend the twisted log in half and repeat 3-4 times with the twisting and bending process until you start to see a nice blending of the colours. If the fondant starts to get sticky, use a bit of corn starch to reduce the tackiness.
Once you get a nice colour marbling started, roll out your fondant on a corn starch dusted surface with a rolling pin until it is about 1mm thick.
Use the cookie cutter you used for the biscuits to cut out the fondant into egg shapes. Wet your fingertips with water and spread a very small amount of water onto the side of the fondant which will be place on the biscuit. Use your fingers to gently push the fondant to the edge of the biscuit to completely cover the surface with the marbled fondant.
To make the white ribbons, roll out your left-over fondant into a rectangle, about 1mm thick.
Using a sharp knife, slice the fondant into 1cm wide strips.
Assemble the strips into ribbon shapes. Use a tiny amount of water to place the fondant ribbon onto the biscuits.