Biscuiteers’ The Snowman™ Biscuits

Let’s get baking…

First start by baking the vanilla biscuits. Sift the flours together into a mixing bowl, add the sugar and mix well.

Add the butter. Using just the tips of your fingers, rub the ingredients together until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs.

When all the butter is evenly mixed in, make a well in the centre and add the syrup and the egg.

Mix well, drawing in any of the flour left at the side of the bowl, and stop as soon as a ball has formed.

Adding flour to help roll out the dough will make it tougher, so instead the trick is to use two sheets of parchment paper. This means you don’t have to use any extra flour at all.

Divide the dough in two and shape into two flat discs. Place the dough on a sheet of parchment paper Make your dough as even as possible.

Begin by gently squashing the dough down with the rolling pin or your hands, cover with a second sheet of parchment then use the rolling pin to roll properly. The top sheet of paper may crinkle, just peel it off and smooth it down gently before starting to roll again.

Gently roll the dough until it is 5mm thick all over. Transfer the whole sheet of rolled dough still sandwiched between its sheets of parchment to a baking tray and place in the fridge to chill for at least 20-30 minutes before cutting into your Snowman shapes. Repeat the process with the rest of the dough.

We use special handmade cutters but you can easily make your own by creating a paper template and cutting around the dough.

Bake in the oven for 15-25 minutes depending on the size of your biscuits at 170°C, or until golden brown.

Once your vanilla biscuits are out of the oven and have cooled down, the fun really begins and you can start to get creative!

Make the icing…

Firstly you will need to make two batches of icing, line icing to create the outline for your biscuits and flood icing so you can easily fill the biscuit in.

Combine all the ingredients in a mixing bowl, starting with the liquids first.

Add the dry ingredients and whisk or beat for about 5 minutes if using an electric beater or whisk, or for longer if using a wooden spoon. Whisk slowly to start with to avoid clouds of icing sugar covering you and your kitchen!

Continue whisking until the ingredients form a thick, smooth paste that is bright white in colour and has the consistency of toothpaste.

Mix white, black, orange and green for your line icing and white and green for your flood icing. We use professional paste colours when mixing both the flood and line icing as liquid food colouring tends to alter the texture of the royal icing and the results won’t be as good.

Carefully ice the outline on your biscuits using a piping bag. This will create ‘walls’ for your biscuits that will stop your runnier flood icing from escaping. Let this icing dry for around 10 minutes at room temperature before continuing.

Flood the body of The Snowman with your white flood icing, then his hat with your green flood icing. Use the nozzle of the squeezy icing bottle to gently nudge the flood icing into corners. Just be careful not to over fill the biscuit with the flood icing, or damage any of the line icing. If there are any air bubbles you can pop these using a cocktail stick.

Set your oven to its lowest temperature (usually around 50°C). Carefully lay the biscuits onto a baking tray and pop them back into your oven for 40 minutes. Not to worry, your biscuits will not burn, the low heat of the oven just dries the icing and creates that professional, glossy look that you are after!

When you take your biscuits out of the oven you will need to let them cool for around half an hour before you can start adding the detail.

Give your snowman some buttons by using the black line icing, and then ice him some eyes and a mouth. You then need to use the green line icing to give him a scarf and the orange for his nose.

Now let your biscuits dry for around 15 minutes at room temperature. You can then pack them up in cellophane bags and give them as gifts, or use them to decorate your Christmas table.

You can buy Biscuiteers’ The Snowman™ and The Snowdog collection online along with lots of other beautiful Christmas designs.