The Great Bloggers Bake Off: Week Two - Galaxy Iced Biscuits

Saturday 3 September 2016

Photo of my Galaxy Iced Biscuits
Galaxy Iced Biscuits
Welcome back to The Great Bloggers Bake Off, this week we got to tackle something that I rarely bake, biscuits. The three challenges in the tent this week were, iced biscuits, viennese swirls, and gingerbread structures. As much as I wanted to take on a Gingerbread structure to challenge myself, I don't have a good track record of making Gingerbread structures (last year I had a meltdown when making a gingerbread house). So instead I decided to push myself in the decorating department, and made some iced biscuits instead!


For This Recipe You Will Need (Makes 24):

For the Biscuits:
  • 200g Salted Butter
  • 100g Caster Sugar
  • Zest of 2 Lemons
  • 350g Plain Flour
For the Icing:
  • 4 1/2 Cups Icing Sugar
  • 4 Large Egg Whites
  • 1/2 tsp Cream of Tartar
  • Juice of 1 Lemon
  • 1-2 tbsp Water
Photos of the steps for Making the Shortbread
Making the Shortbread
Preheat your oven to 180C, and prepare your baking sheets by lining them with baking paper. Then beat the butter until soft, once this is done you can add the sugar and lemon zest and beat it again until smooth. Sift the flour into the bowl and then work it with your hands until the dough starts to come together. If the mixture is particularly short you can add a few drops of water to try and bring it together more.
Photos of the steps for Cutting out the Biscuits
Cutting out the Biscuits
When the dough starts to come together, tip it out onto a floured surface and gently knead it until it comes together fully. Flour a rolling pin and then roll out the dough to about 0.5cm thickness, then simply use your cutter of choice to cut out your biscuits. Once cut transfer them to your baking trays (I decided to do 6 biscuits per baking sheet), then place into the oven for 20-25 minutes. Once the cookies are a pale golden brown you can removed them from the oven and then allow them to cool completely.
Photos of the steps for icing the galaxy biscuits
Making Galaxies
Once the biscuits are cooled you can begin making the icing. Sift your icing sugar into your stand mixer or large bowl, add the Cream of Tartar and egg whites, then mix on a low setting until combined. Add your Lemon juice and beat on high for 1 minute, at this point the icing should be thick and sticky. To get the icing to flood consistency add your water 1 tbsp at a time, you will know when it is ready when you lift the beater out of the bowl and the icing self levels. Divide half of the icing mixture between three separate bowls to colour. Leave one of these white, the colour the others blue and purple. In the large bowl add your black food colouring, then place each of the mixtures into piping bags, using a number 2 tip on the black icing bag. Start by piping a black edge around the biscuits, then moving onto the blue and following the shape of the biscuit, but just inside the black border, finally pipe the purple icing into the centre. Using a toothpick lightly swirl the colours together to make your galaxy. Pipe a small amount of white icing onto a plate, and then dip your toothpick in this, then carefully prick the surface of the icing to deposit your smaller stars. Then pipe two larger white dots onto your biscuits where ever you like, taking a clean toothpick carefully drag it from the centre outwards to create the four points of your larger stars. Leave the biscuits to set for 2-4 hours, or preferably overnight.

Photos of the finished Galaxy Iced Biscuits
Galaxy Iced Biscuits
When they are completely set you should be left with some beautiful little galaxies that are not only really nice to look at, but also amazing to eat! Thanks again to the lovely Jenny from Mummy Mishaps for hosting the blogger bake off once again this year, if you want to see what the other bloggers have made then head on over to her blog. If you've enjoyed today's post then come back next week when I will be taking on bread!

Mummy Mishaps
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