Biscuit baking
I felt like making some biscuits recently. It's not something I make often, I generally make cakes of varying sizes. When I was in Sainsbury's last week, I happened to see a special Summer Edition Summer Holiday Biscuit Kit. It would make 8 shortbread biscuits with just the addition of butter and water. It was conveniently reduced to £1.50 so I thought why not?
The instructions were a bit lacking. It said, "Empty the biscuit mix into a bowl and add 75g of chilled unsalted butter. Mix until it comes together as dough." But mix how exactly? I presumed that as it specified chilled butter and that the dry ingredients were all in together that it required rubbing in. It came together fairly easily but the dough was really short so it was difficult to roll out without it cracking. The instructions said to roll it out until it was 6mm thick which was very precise. Mine was 7mm and I left it at that because I am a rebel.
I thought cutters would be supplied in the kit but there weren't any. Instead, the shapes were drawn inside the box which I had to cut out and use as stencils. It was rather finicky going round the ice cream shape but thankfully I had a small sharp knife. I don't think I did too badly. There was plenty of dough left over after I'd cut out the 8 specified. I managed an extra ice lolly and then a randomly shaped tasty bit.
They spread out slightly as well as puffing up a bit in the oven. They probably could have done with being chilled to firm up the dough but that wasn't specified in the recipe. They did flatten out once they'd cooled down. They smelt really good. I had been surprised to see that the ingredients were just flour, cornflour, sugar, salt, and butter, so the right ones for shortbread.
Next step was to put on the pink icing. I didn't put in the full amount of liquid specified but it was still really runny. It was dripping off the biscuits as soon as I'd put it on. Then it had to set for 15-20 minutes before I could do the rest.
The white part was made from melting white chocolate chips. The bag didn't seem to have a huge amount of chips in and when they were melted, it didn't look like there would be enough at all. I did the ice creams first and it was pretty clear at that point that I was going to struggle to give the lollies a decent covering. I got a nice texture in the ice creams so it looked like ice cream, but there was no way that I could get the lollies to look smooth. They weren't stingy with the sprinkles at least, I put plenty on and still had half the bag left!
The finished result! We had one each for tea. They weren't too bad. The biscuit itself was crunchy and tasted fairly like shortbread - good job I bought decent butter! They were a bit too thin though, even with that extra 1mm that I gave them. The icing made the whole thing too sweet, so it's probably a good thing that most of it absconded. To be honest, the last thing that shortbread needs is icing! The white chocolate wasn't as bad for sweetness so that bit was okay. Overall, not bad for the price but they could have been better if they'd been thicker, had less icing, and more white chocolate!
The instructions were a bit lacking. It said, "Empty the biscuit mix into a bowl and add 75g of chilled unsalted butter. Mix until it comes together as dough." But mix how exactly? I presumed that as it specified chilled butter and that the dry ingredients were all in together that it required rubbing in. It came together fairly easily but the dough was really short so it was difficult to roll out without it cracking. The instructions said to roll it out until it was 6mm thick which was very precise. Mine was 7mm and I left it at that because I am a rebel.
I thought cutters would be supplied in the kit but there weren't any. Instead, the shapes were drawn inside the box which I had to cut out and use as stencils. It was rather finicky going round the ice cream shape but thankfully I had a small sharp knife. I don't think I did too badly. There was plenty of dough left over after I'd cut out the 8 specified. I managed an extra ice lolly and then a randomly shaped tasty bit.
They spread out slightly as well as puffing up a bit in the oven. They probably could have done with being chilled to firm up the dough but that wasn't specified in the recipe. They did flatten out once they'd cooled down. They smelt really good. I had been surprised to see that the ingredients were just flour, cornflour, sugar, salt, and butter, so the right ones for shortbread.
Next step was to put on the pink icing. I didn't put in the full amount of liquid specified but it was still really runny. It was dripping off the biscuits as soon as I'd put it on. Then it had to set for 15-20 minutes before I could do the rest.
The white part was made from melting white chocolate chips. The bag didn't seem to have a huge amount of chips in and when they were melted, it didn't look like there would be enough at all. I did the ice creams first and it was pretty clear at that point that I was going to struggle to give the lollies a decent covering. I got a nice texture in the ice creams so it looked like ice cream, but there was no way that I could get the lollies to look smooth. They weren't stingy with the sprinkles at least, I put plenty on and still had half the bag left!
The finished result! We had one each for tea. They weren't too bad. The biscuit itself was crunchy and tasted fairly like shortbread - good job I bought decent butter! They were a bit too thin though, even with that extra 1mm that I gave them. The icing made the whole thing too sweet, so it's probably a good thing that most of it absconded. To be honest, the last thing that shortbread needs is icing! The white chocolate wasn't as bad for sweetness so that bit was okay. Overall, not bad for the price but they could have been better if they'd been thicker, had less icing, and more white chocolate!