Basic Biscuits - great for kids cutters

I used muscovado sugar for this batch,
gave a lovely colour (plus we had run out of caster)

The Junior Gingerbread's love to have made something for visitors. Visitors with experience of kids maybe (wisely) dubious of their creations. These are a fairly safe bet - they don't get handled too much and what you see is what you get.
A brilliant basic biscuit dough. Gives a lovely crisp and moreish biscuit. Works an absolute treat with the kids plastic and metal biscuit cutters and tastes yummy too. These are really easily changed to keep them from getting repetitive. One option is to vary the flavour with a few drops of lemon, orange, vanilla or almond essence.  Half dipping the biscuits in melted chocolate, rolling in crushed nuts, adding some dried cranberries or dropping on a few chocolate chips - there are loads of things you can do to make them more interesting. This makes a generous plate full. I'll do a rough count next batch and update.

I got these great cutters from my sister for Christmas

Ingredients

250g butter, softened

140g caster sugar

1 egg yolk

2 tsp vanilla extract

300g plain flour

Method

Mix 250g softened butter and 140g caster sugar in a large bowl with a wooden spoon

Add 1 egg yolk and 2 tsp vanilla extract and briefly beat to combine. 

Sift over 300g plain flour and stir until the mixture is well combined - you might need to get your hands in at the end to give everything a really good mix and press the dough together.

Oven temperature 170c - bake for 12-15 minutes until golden brown and slightly firm on top.

Coconut Cupcakes - small batch great for kids

This little gem of a recipe makes just 6 small cupcakes. Its great for making with the Junior Gingerbreads as you don't get a glut of cakes that have had a little more poking, dropping and generally flinging about than you would like. Lets face it of lot of kids cooking is only eaten by the brave, closely related or blissfully unaware.





Ingredients

50g Self Raising Flour

25g Desiccated Coconut

50g Margarine / Butter (room temp is best)

50g Caster Sugar

1 Egg, beaten

A little Milk

For the topping (we never get this far as have already eaten the cakes)

100g Icing Sugar

1 tbsp Water

3 Glace Cherries, halved

Method

• Preheat the oven to 180C,and place 6 paper fairy cake cases on a baking tray, evenly spaced apart.
• Place all the cupcake ingredients in a large mixing bowl and beat with a wooden spoon until well blended, adding 2-3 teaspoons milk if necessary in order to make the mixture soft enough to drop easily from the spoon.
• Place 1 tablespoon of the mixture in each paper case, pushing it from spoon with knife. Smooth the tops, then bake towards the top of the oven for 10-12 minutes, until well-risen, golden and firm to the touch. Cool on wire racks or eat trying not to burn fingers and mouths.
• Once the cakes and cold, place the icing sugar and water in a mixing bowl and mix well until blended and smooth.
•  Place a teaspoon of the icing mixture on the top in the middle of each cupcake then press a cherry half into the icing. Allow to set for at least 25 minutes before serving