How to Ice Vintage Traveller Biscuits

Our beautiful Vintage Traveller Biscuit tin is the ultimate gift for world travellers. It's one of our oldest and most iconic designs, so it's no wonder you voted it to be part of our top 10 Biscuiteers icon collection. These biscuits were inspired by vintage maps and Phileas Fogg, at Biscuiteers HQ we're always searching for next most exciting place to visit so this is a collection very close to our hearts.

The first step is to bake your biscuits, following the easy chocolate biscuit recipe which we use everyday in the Biscuiteers bakery. The rich chocolate taste is the perfect counterpoint to the sweet icing.

To make the biscuit shapes, use biscuit cutters. The next step is to make your flood and line icing whilst the biscuits cool. To do so, use the Biscuiteers guide to icing. You will need gold, ivory and brown flood icing, and gold, brown, blue, red and black line icing.

In the Biscuiteers bakery we use powdered colours derived from plants, carrots, beetroot and even spinach to make our icing palettes. However, for home baking traditional bottles of food colouring are suitable, or for stronger colours you can use food-colour gels which are available in most cookshops. Once you’ve completed these steps it’s time to start icing your vintage traveller biscuits!

How to ice a compass biscuit:
1. Using your gold line icing, outline the shape of the circular biscuit and the interior of the compass. These are the ‘walls’ which you will fill with flood icing. It’s a good idea to practise a few lines beforehand, icing directly onto greaseproof paper. Leave the biscuits at room temperature for 15 minutes or until completely dry.

2. Using your gold flood icing, slowly fill in the golden walls. Don’t add too much as it will spill out of the sides of the biscuit. Then, fill in the compass face using your ivory flood icing

3. Put the flooded biscuits in the oven on a baking tray, set the oven to the lowest temperature it can go (usually around 50°C) for 40 minutes. This will allow your biscuits to dry without cooking any further.

4. Now it’s time for the best bit – adding the detailing. For this you’ll need gold, black, red and blue line icing. First of all, outline the compass face twice and add dots between the two walls. Then, add the North, South, East and West lettering with dashes inbetween, an arrow in the centre and your red and blue hands.

5. Allow 15 minutes for the line icing to dry, and then get ready to eat your hand-iced biscuits!

How to ice a suitcase biscuit:
1. As with your compass, the first step is to create ‘walls.’ To do this, use brown line icing to outline the edges of your suitcase. Make sure there are no gaps or your flood icing (see the next step!) will seep out. Once you have completed the walls leave the biscuits at room temperature for 15 minutes or until completely dry.

2. With the ‘walls’ in place you can then fill them in using brown flood icing. In the Biscuiteers bakery they use small squeezy plastic bottles, but you can also spoon the icing onto the biscuits and spread it out using a cocktail stick.

3. Once your biscuits have been flooded it’s time to let them dry. Put the biscuits onto a baking tray and into the oven at the lowest temperature (around 50°C) for 40 minutes. This will give them a glossy, professional finish.

4. After they have dried in the oven you can add the special detailing using line icing. First, add two brown lines to two sides of the case and then a small handle to the top. This will help create a 3D effect, especially once you have added gold buckles. These buckles are simply four gold dots, two at the bottom of the handle and two on either side.