Recipe - Iced "Party" Ring Biscuits

Iced "Party" Ring Biscuits

Whenever I take the boys with me to do the food shop one of the first things they will ask for is Foxs Party Rings biscuits. With their bright colourful designs they tend to be quite popular with kiddies.

I decided to take a look on the internet for recipes and managed to find a very helpful one on Good Housekeeping. They are easy to bake and lots of fun to decorate. You can use your favourite basic biscuit recipe or you can use this one which I took from the website:

Ingredients:

• 200g plain flour
• 100g caster sugar
• 100g butter, at room temperature
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp vanilla extra/flavouring

Makes about 30 biscuits.

1) First, take all of your ingredients and place them in a bowl and mix until combined.
2) Tip out your dough onto a work surface and knead until you get a smooth dough that you can easily roll out later.
3) Wrap your biscuit dough in cling film and place in the fridge for about 20 minutes. This will help the dough to keep its shape when it's cooking in the oven.
4) Pre-heat your oven to 180c(160c fan) or gas mark 4.
5) Take your biscuit dough out of the fridge and sprinkle some flour onto your work surface. Roll out the dough until it's about 5mm thick all over.
6) Take two round cookie cutters in the size you want your biscuits to be in, one slight smaller than the other. Stamp out your biscuits with the larger cutter making sure you use the smaller one to make a ring effect.
7) Place onto a sheet tray lined with greasproof paper and bake for 12 minutes or until the biscuits are lightly golden in colour.
8) Once cooked, place onto a cooling wrack until cool to touch.

This is what you should have so far, some yummy looking buscuits:

Next you will need:

• 300g icing sugar (Royal icing is best but not essential. Royal icing hardens more when dry)
• 1tbsp vanilla extract/flavouring (or whatever flavour you like!)
• Food colourings in your choice of colours (I use Suagrflair colour pastes)

Place the icing sugar in a bowl and gradually add a little bit of water at a time until you get a thick, spreadable consistency. Add vanilla flavouring, or whatever flavour you like, and mix well. Separate into enough bowls for however many colours you want to use and colour with the food colourings.

On with the decorating!

Start by taking a biscuit ring and spread one colour over the biscuit to completly cover the top surface. You could use a cutlery knife, spoon or whatever is easier for you.

Next, take a different colour and drizzle a few lines over the iced biscuit to give it a bit of contrast (I'm not so neat at this part!).

Take a tooth pick and draw it across the icing to give it a feathered effect. Do this as many time as you like until you get the apprearence you want.

Continue these steps until all your biscuits are iced. You can make as many different colour combinations as you like.

I hope you like our little how-to guide and if you do make some of your own I would love to see your creations!

Have fun :D