I hope you are all fine and dandy. I am feeling good today after a week of the most awful cold. It's still there, lingering but compared to earlier in the week I feel great!
I wanted to share with you my Mother's Day baking. Usually I do a nice dinner for our Mums (remember last years next morning hangover on my birthday?) but this year I felt like a wee change. so I grabbed these and some other ingredients and ventured forth in to the land of the Biscuiteers.
(there should be trumpets at this bit so just pretend okay)
I ordered some flower sugarpaste (which btw dries unbelievably fast even compared to regular sugarpaste!) and a daffodil cutter and added to my wee collection of colour paste (I had to bin a whole load that I'd had for years but I'm slowly rebuilding it). The end result were these little fellows.
With no foam pad to sit them in/on (mental note to obtain one) I resorted to making them comfy in upturned icing nozzles balanced in the holes of my wee metal pot trivet. Did the job though. I'm glad I went with making the trumpet a slightly darker, more orange yellow (although difficult to see in the above photo). They turned out lovely I think.
Now onto the biscuits.
I've had the Biscuiteer book for a couple of months now. I have always used a Nigella recipe for biscuits which is great, but, the icing always made the biscuits soften and it is impossible to sit the biscuits atop of one another without a right old mess. Not to mention disastrous consequences for the icing design, so I was interested in trying the Biscuiteer way of doing it because of the icing being harder and therefore easier to transport etc. I did that thing I sometimes do though, with the recipe. I read that the plain biscuits called for granulated sugar and I went ahead adding it in the full knowledge that unrefined golden sugar of any kind does not act in the same way as refined. You can see in the next photo I was right. The sugar is still apparent even after baking. It didn't effect the taste but next time I should trust my baking or sugar knowledge and change to caster (cannae use bleached).
The biscuits were/are very tasty. Adding golden syrup really made them taste delicious.
Now to the icing.
Again I followed the recipe knowing full well I was making too much but you know I am not a Master Baker so I bow to the idea that other people may know something I don't and therefore I go with them, even, on occasion, when I have and instinct something is not right. But you know, with baking, you have to be precise. The fundamentals are not to be tweaked, flavours etc sure, and you never want to end up in that awful situation of 'not enough' so you go with it. Anyhoo, I had way too much icing but let me tell you, Royal icing whisked up in a Kitchenaid for five minutes is a glorious sight. Beautiful and glossy like meringue.
Now this is where I get a bit irritated and I know I shouldn't. I hate hate hate that I am not better with an icing bag. It drives me nuts. I get that it takes practice. I know that but I want to be perfect instantly and no matter how much older and hopefully wiser I get, I still do not learn this lesson. I was not happy with the end result but I will persevere.
I love doing the polka dots with the flood icing though, it's a lot of fun and the daffies look really good, if I do say so myself.
See, look at that line icing....grrrr!
They looked great all packaged up in recycled tubs from the supermarket ( I cannae throw anything away that can be used to package up baking). They tasted really good too, once we got used to the idea of crunchier icing. I liked that they got put back in the oven on a really low temperature to dry out as this meant I could pile them up in their boxes.
I have plans to make them for EVERYBODY'S birthdays this year if anything to justify adding to my cookie cutter collection.
I am just a wee bit pleased I can now call myself a 'Biscuiteer' but I cannot help asking. Where's my sword and I demand Gene Kelly has a well choreographed sword fight in front of me in those 'tight' tights.
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(image from Amazon)
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