Week two in the tent saw biscuits J The first challenge were for iced biscuits, which I’d never tried
before in fear of making unrecognizable/laughable creations…this episode gave me courage
though and I decided to make two different iced biscuits. The first of these
are pineapple and coconut biscuits with a lime icing, in the shape of a palm
tree. I loved the tropical flavour of these biscuits, though I’ll admit they
are delicate pre-icing.
I drew the template for the palm tree
myself – basing it on the picture below: I made the tree about 7cm tall, but
they do spread slightly in the oven, so if you’d like a smaller biscuit, just
draw a smaller palm tree J
Makes 12-24 biscuits (depending on size of
template used)
Ingredients:
For the biscuits:
- 50g (1/4 cup) dessicated coconut
- 225g (1 cup) softened butter
- 110g (1/2 cup) caster sugar
- Zest of 2 limes
- 200g (2 cups) plain flour
- 100g (1 cup) corn flour
- 75g (1/2 cup) chopped dried pineapple
- Pinch of salt
- Palm Tree template (see above)
For the icing:
- 400g (4 cups) royal icing sugar
- 75ml lime juice (1/3 cup, about 4 limes)
- Gel food colouring – green and yellow/ivory colours
Method:
1. Preheat the oven to
180c/350f/gas mark 4. Line a baking tray with baking paper and pour over the
coconut.
2. Toast the coconut for 5 minutes. Check the coconut and
gently mix (to stop the edges from burning). Continue to toast until the coconut
is brown – check every minute or so - it burns very easily! Set aside whilst you make the biscuit mixture.
3. Cream the butter, sugar and lime zest
together until the mixture is pale and fluffy.
4. Sift the plain flour and cornflour into the
bowl, as well as the coconut and dried pineapple, and bring the mixture together into a
dough (you can use a spoon or your hands – whichever is easiest).
5. Wrap the dough in cling film and chill for
20 minutes.
6. Roll out one third of the dough between two
sheets of clingfilm until it is about 5mm thick.
7. Cut out palm trees using your template.
Gently remove excess dough and refrigerate the trees for 20-30 minutes, until
firm to the touch.
8. Repeat the rolling, cutting and chilling
for the rest of the palm trees.
9. Transfer the palm trees to a lined baking
tray, making there is at least a 2-3cm gap between the biscuits.
10. Bake for 10-12 minutes, until lightly
brown. Leave to cool before moving to a plate to ice.
Beat the icing – it needs to be pipeable
but not runny. If the icing becomes too runny add more royal icing sugar – if
too thick, add small amounts of lime juice (or milk) into the mixture.
12. Transfer a small amount of the icing (1-2 tablespoons) to a
separate bowl and add small amounts of green food colouring until a deep green
colour is achieved. Place into a piping bag and cut off the tip (about 3mm from
the end).
13. Pipe outlines of the leaves with the green
icing.
14. Take another small amount of the white
icing, and colour it ivory/yellow (depending on the exact shade of tree you’d
like). Pipe the borders of the tree trunk and set aside (this icing is needed
again).
15. Add 10ml lime juice (or milk if you’ve
run out of juice) into the rest of the icing, and beat. It should just be able to
run off a spoon – this is icing that will be used to flood the biscuits.
16. Split the icing into two. To the first
colour it light green, to the second colour it ivory/yellow.
17. Take small teaspoons of the green icing,
and fill in the leaf section of the biscuits, using the back of a teaspoon to
spread the icing to the piped borders.
18. Repeat with the ivory icing for the trunk.
19. Use the reserved ivory icing (in the piping
bag), to pipe lines over the trunk.
20. Leave to set.
21. Enjoy!
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