Biscuiteers » welcome to our blog

L.O.V.E Spells Love – Valentines recipe and icing guide

biscuiteers — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 15:42:22 +0000

Valentine’s Day is on its way, so now’s the time to start thinking about presents if you don’t want to be stuck with a wilting bunch of garage-roses. At Biscuiteers HQ, we happen to think the only way to say those three little words is with icing! Better still, some hand made and hand iced ‘I Love You’ biscuits, straight out of the Biscuiteers Book of Iced Biscuits.

To make 24 of our Valentines biscuits you’ll need…

275g plain flour

100g self-raising flour

75g good quality cocoa powder

125g granulated sugar

125g salted butter, diced

125g golden syrup

1 large egg, lightly beaten

And then just follow these simple steps….

* Preheat the oven to 170c/350f/gas mark 4 before you begin.

* Sift the flours and cocoa together into a mixing bowl, add the sugar and mix well.

* Add the butter. Using just the tips of your fingers, rub together the ingredients 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 sides of the bowl and stop as soon as a ball has formed.

* Place the dough onto your clean worktop. Divide into two and squash the dough into two even-sized flat discs. Cover and chill until ready to use, or roll out immediately.

* Place the dough on a sheet of parchment and begin by gently squashing the dough down with a rolling pin or your hands. Cover with a second sheet of parchment and then use the rolling pin to roll out
properly.

* The top sheet of paper may crinkle from time to time, 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, then 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.

* Letter shaped cutters are widely available online, or you can choose to make your own. To do this, identify the letter you want to trace (making sure they are bulky enough to survive the baking) and lay a sheet of parchment on top, carefully tracing around the letter. Carefully cut the templates out with scissors. You can find some of our favourite templates in the Biscuiteers Book of Iced Biscuits.

* Assemble your collection of cutters or templates and start to cut. To use the dough efficiently cut the biscuits out as close together as possible. Lift each biscuit onto the parchment covered baking tray and make sure they are not too close together as the dough will spread a little on baking. Any trimmings can be re-rolled a couple of times.

* Evenly space the trays in the oven and cook for 14-18 minutes, depending on your oven.

* When the biscuits are evenly cooked and just beginning to turn a golden colour remove the trays from the oven and transfer the whole sheet of parchment to a cooling rack. Do this carefully as the biscuits will be quite fragile and hot!

* Cool totally before starting to ice.

‘I Love You’ biscuit icing tips from the Biscuiteers kitchen…

1. To start, cut your piping bag straight across to achieve a clean icing line.

2. Always use a clean piping bag, so that your icing colours stay lovely.

3. We use two basic types of royal icing at Biscuiteers – a thick, smooth paste for piping details and edging, and a runnier glossy mixture for flooding larger areas.

4. Practice your icing techniques on a parchment sheet before starting on your biscuits.

5. Using the piping icing (should be smooth and thick, a bit like the texture of toothpaste) and ice around the letter edges to create a ‘wall’ for the runny icing.

6. Once the edges are dry, use a runny royal icing to flood the biscuit.

7. When filling areas with runny icing, use a sharp cocktail stick to burst any bubbles. This will help achieve a smooth and luxurious finish.

8. Our ‘I Love You’ letters are iced in vibrant coloured stripes and spots, which are quite easy to achieve. Once the flood icing is completely dry, use the thick line icing to carefully add the detail on top.

9. If you want the detail to sink into the flood icing, much like our polka dot hearts, add this whilst the flood icing is still wet.

10. Stock up on lots of baubles and sugar glitter to finish off your biscuits with some pizazz! Do remember though that sugar glitter will stick better to super wet icing (it dries pretty fast!)

Psssst. If you want all of the credit, but none of the work.. wiz over to our website where you can choose from our Valentines range of hand iced biscuits and chocs, sent straight to your crush. No fuss.

Biscuiteers ‘Me Before You’ biscuit tin

biscuiteers — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 12:54:30 +0000

At Biscuiteers HQ, we love nothing more than sitting down with a cup of tea, a tin of biscuits and a good book. So imagine how thrilled we were when Penguin asked us to review the new book from Jojo Moyes – ‘Me Before You’. Published in January 2012, the book follows the unlikely love story between two people. We loved the book so much, that we have designed a special, limited edition ‘Me Before You’ biscuit tin to celebrate the launch of the book.

Here’s what we thought about the book!

‘I was spellbound by the love of two unlikely people. A real tear inducing romance. Wonderful!’ – Zailia, Assistant Production Manager

‘Jojo Moyes definitely knows the recipe for a first-class novel. Love, tears and laughter, Me Before You is the perfect mixture’ – Johanna, Marketing Assistant

‘A modern and truly believable love story, I couldn’t put it down’ – Cassie, Marketing Manager

‘A perfect book to discover Jojo Moyes and relax with after a long day of icing!’ – Marion, Production Manager

The tin will be available on line in January, but in the mean time we wanted to share our classic chocolate recipe and icing tips so you can create your very own ‘Me before You’ biscuits at home.

To make 24 Me Before You biscuits, you’ll need –

350g plain flour

75g good quality cocoa powder

100g self-raising flour

125g granulated sugar

125g salted butter, diced

125g golden syrup

1 large egg, lightly beaten

Then follow these steps -

* Preheat the oven to 170c/350f/gas mark 4 before you begin making your biscuits.

* Sift the flours together into a mixing bowl; add the sugar and cocoa powder. Mix well.

* Add the butter. Using just the tips of your fingers, rub together the ingredients 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 sides of the bowl and stop as soon as a ball has formed.

* Place the dough onto your clean worktop. Divide into two and squash the dough into two even-sized flat discs. Cover and chill until ready to use, or roll out immediately.

* The top sheet of paper may crinkle from time to time, just peel it off and smooth it down gently before starting to roll again.

* Heart shaped cutters are widely available online, or you can choose to make your own. To do this, identify the heart shape you want to trace and lay a sheet of parchment on top, carefully tracing around. Carefully cut the templates out with scissors.

* To use the dough efficiently cut the biscuits out as close together as possible. Lift each biscuit onto the parchment covered baking tray and make sure they are not too close together as the dough will spread a little on baking. Any trimmings can be re-rolled a couple of times.

* Evenly space the trays in the oven and cook for 14-18 minutes, depending on your oven.

* Cool totally before starting to ice.

And finally.. follow these icing tips -

To start, cut your piping bag straight across to achieve a clean icing line.
Always use a clean piping bag, so that your icing colours stay lovely.
Practice your icing techniques on a parchment sheet before starting on your biscuits.
Mix icing in bright colours – pink, blue and orange.
Ice the outline around the heart with line icing, allow it to dry completely before filling in with runny icing for the background.
When filling areas with runny icing, use a sharp cocktail stick to burst any bubbles. This will help achieve a smooth and luxurious finish.
Use a sharp cocktail stick to shape the wet runny icing into shapes and hearts.

Biscuiteers visit to Fortnum and Mason

biscuiteers — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 12:06:24 +0000

Last week we were thrilled to be invited to one of our favourite London stores, Fortnum and Mason. Two of our expert icers, Lizzie and Susanna spent the afternoon in the F&M bakery, demonstrating our icing techniques and helping customers ice their own Christmas biscuits. A very festive and enjoyable afternoon was had by all!

If you would like to try your hand at being a Biscuiteer, we have just launched our Rainy Day Icing Kit which contains everything you need to give your homebaked biscuits and cakes the Biscuiteers touch.

It’s beginning to feel a lot like Christmas!

biscuiteers — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 17:33:56 +0000

Christmas is in full swing here at Biscuiteers HQ. We know December isn’t here yet, but we’ve decided its completely fine to eat Christmas biscuits for two months instead of one. We hope you feel the same way, and to help you get into the festive way of thinking, here is a delicious recipe from our book, just for you.

To make 24 Orange and Cinnamon biscuits, you’ll need –

350g plain flour

100g self-raising flour

125g granulated sugar

125g salted butter, diced

125g golden syrup

1 large egg, lightly beaten

Grated zest of 2 oranges

½ tablespoon of cinnamon

Then follow these steps -

* Preheat the oven to 170c/350f/gas mark 4 before you begin making your biscuits.

* Sift the flours together into a mixing bowl; add the sugar, cinnamon and orange zest. Mix well.

* Add the butter. Using just the tips of your fingers, rub together the ingredients 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 sides of the bowl and stop as soon as a ball has formed.

* Place the dough onto your clean worktop. Divide into two and squash the dough into two even-sized flat discs. Cover and chill until ready to use, or roll out immediately.

* The top sheet of paper may crinkle from time to time, just peel it off and smooth it down gently before starting to roll again.

* Christmas themed cutters are widely available online, or you can choose to make your own. To do this, identify the shape you want to trace and lay a sheet of parchment on top, carefully tracing around the shape. Remember that you can ice on much more detail than needs to be reflected in the shape of the biscuit. Carefully cut the templates out with scissors.

* Evenly space the trays in the oven and cook for 14-18 minutes, depending on your oven.

* Cool totally before starting to ice.

For some design inspiration, have a look at our Christmas range, or these photos of our production team in action!

Biscuiteers Icing Parties

biscuiteers — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 16:03:06 +0000

Recently we had the pleasure of hosting an icing party for a group of young Biscuiteers! Two of our lovely icers visited the birthday girls house, bringing with them a rainbow of icing colours, biscuits and lots of icing tips straight from the Biscuiteers kitchen. A couple of hours later, after much fun (and lots of mess!) the girls had iced their own Woodland collection, and packed it into a Biscuiteers tin to take home.

Our icers were on hand to help the party guests perfect their icing skills…

We also made Violet a hand iced Biscuiteers birthday cake, which will be available to buy on our website later this month.

Happy Birthday!

If you are interested in having a Biscuiteers icing party, just wiz an email over to yum@biscuiteers.com. We think they are a top idea for birthdays and hen parties!

The Biscuiteers & Lettice Christmas showcase

biscuiteers — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 13:58:49 +0000

Earlier this month we held an early Christmas showcase with our sister company, Lettice Party Design, to introduce our fantastic new Christmas range and celebrate the start to our favourite time of the year! The party was held at the Design Museum, and our guests enjoyed delectable Christmas themed canapes and cocktails from the talented Lettice team.

It was the first outing for our new range of hand-iced cakes, which will be available to buy from www.biscuiteers.com/cakes very soon!

We were proud as punch to show off our Christmas iced choc tins. These are now available on our website, and can be completely personalised! www.biscuiteers.com/shop/chocs/christmas/

We drank Spiced peach puree with Prosecco – try saying that after a couple!

The little pot of trimmings were a firm favourite amongst the Biscuiteers girls – it contained tiny chipolatas, rolled smoked bacon, sage and onion stuffing, bread sauce and gorgeous gravy with parsnip chips. Yum!

We cant wait for December now!

Bake love x

National Baking week is here!

biscuiteers — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 16:04:07 +0000

From the 17th to the 23rd of October it is National Baking Week here in the UK. I’m sure we don’t need to tell you that this is right up our street! Of course we are baking mad 365 days of the year, but this week we want to celebrate our obsession by sharing some of our recipes, secret tips and favourite things to bake with you.

To kick things off (and to embrace the Halloween season!) we would love to share with you our favourite recipe for ghoulishly good Treacle Spice Biscuits, and our top tips for icing Halloween designs. And if you scroll to the bottom, there is a chance to win a copy of our book!

To make 24 biscuits, you’ll need..

200g plain flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp mixed spice
50g muscovado dark brown sugar
100g salted butter, diced
50g black treacle or molasses

Then follow these simple steps…

1. Sift the flour, baking powder and spices into a mixing bowl. Add the sugar and mix well.

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

3. When all the butter is evenly mixed in, make a well in the centre and add the treacle and bring it all together. You will know when it is all mixed in as it will have an even colour all over with not too many streaks of treacle.

4. Place the dough onto a clean worktop. Divide into two and squash the dough into two even-sized flat discs. Cover and chill until ready to use or roll out immediately.

5. Place the dough on a sheet of parchment and begin by gently squashing the dough down with a rolling pin or your hands. Cover with a second sheet of parchment and then use the rolling pin to roll out properly. The top sheet of paper may crinkle from time to time, just peel it off and smooth it down gently before starting to roll again.

6. Preheat the oven to 170c/350f/gas mark 4.

7. Gently roll the dough until it is 5mm thick all over, then 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.

8. Halloween themed cutters are widely available online, or you can choose to make your own. To do this, identify the shapes you want to trace (bats and cats work really well!) and lay a sheet of parchment
on top, carefully tracing around the shape. Remember that you can ice on much more detail than needs to be reflected in the shape of the biscuit. Carefully cut the templates out with scissors. You can find some of our favourite templates in the Biscuiteers Book of Iced Biscuits.

9. Assemble your collection of cutters or templates and start to cut. To use the dough efficiently cut the biscuits out as close together as possible. Lift each biscuit onto the parchment covered baking tray and make sure they are not too close together as the dough will spread a little on baking. Any trimmings can be re-rolled a couple of times.

10. Evenly space the trays in the oven and cook for 14-18 minutes, depending on your oven.

11. When the biscuits are evenly cooked and just beginning to turn a golden colour remove the trays from the oven and transfer the whole sheet of parchment to a cooling rack. Do this carefully as the biscuits will be quite fragile and hot! Cool totally before starting to ice.

Now the fun begins.. its time to ice!

Biscuiteers Sparkly Bat

Ice around the outline of the bat with black line icing and allow to dry for 5 minutes. Flood the body with black runny icing. After 1 minute, sprinkle on silver glitter. Allow to dry completely. Brush off the excess glitter and add 2 eyes with yellow line icing.

Witch’s Cat

Outline the cats body in black line icing and allow to dry for 5 minutes. Flood the centre with black runny icing and allow to dry completely. Add a bright yellow collar and some orange eyes with line icing.

Ghoulish Ghost

Outline the body of the ghost in white line icing, then outline the eyes and mouth in orange line icing. Allow to dry for 5 minutes. Flood with white runny icing and allow to completely dry.

Wicked Witch

Outline the Witch’s cloak, hat and dress in orange line icing, then ice her face and hands in green line. Allow to dry for 5 minutes. Flood her hat and cloak in black runny icing, flood her face and hands in green runny icing and flood her dress in orange runny icing. Allow everything to completely dry. Pipe on her broom with brown line icing. Pipe her hair with lines of black line icing, and her socks with stripes of yellow and red line. Finally, ice an orange stripe on her hat.

Happy baking!

Ps. To celebrate National Baking Week we are giving away FIVE COPIES of our book, The Biscuiteers Book of Iced Biscuits. For a chance to win, just tell us below what type of ghoulish Halloween biscuit you would like to make and the 5 best (and most scary!) answers win a copy.

Good luck!

Bake love x

Behind the scenes at Biscuiteers HQ

biscuiteers — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 16:36:21 +0000

By now we hope you have had a good old nose around the brand new www.biscuiteers.com, and love it (and our new ranges!) as much as we do. We’ve been developing the site over the last 6 months, and the fantastic new ranges since the beginning of this year. If we counted all of the hours spent baking, icing, computer programming, illustrating, discussing, photographing, testing, weighing, packing, and tasting (!) it would total over 1,440 hours!

As a welcome to the new Bake Love blog (and a taster of what is to come) here are some behind the scenes snaps of the Biscuiteers team, and our amazing design agency Big Fish, working on the site.

Laurie and Harriet going through the website layout.

Dizzy and Lily – clearly not pulling their weight!

Our fantastic photographer, Natalie at the Big Fish studio shooting one of many new tins for the website. We all decided quite early on that we wanted to fill the new site with an abundance of beautiful images, so she had her work cut out!

Natalie uses sugar to hold the biscuits in place, and brushes each biscuit with a fine, clean brush before shooting.

We very much hope you enjoy the new site, and would love to hear your thoughts!

Bake love x

ilovegorgeous party!

biscuiteers — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 14:07:09 +0000

This month we have partnered up with the West London children’s fashion boutique, ilovegorgeous. Everyone at Biscuiteers HQ loves their beautiful collection, so much so that each lucky ilovegorgeous.co.uk customer will recieve an exclusive Biscuiteers biscuit card with their online order. To celebrate our new found friendship, Biscuiteers MD Harriet and her daughter Violet went to the ilovegorgeous AW11 launch party, complete with facepaint, dressing up, and of course.. Biscuiteers goodies!

We are also super excited to launch our ilovegorgeous facebook sweepstake, giving you the chance to win the very popular (and our favourite!) ilovegorgeous Party Star Dress. Enter here - good luck!

Bake love x