Anton du Beke's stained glass biscuits
Anton heads to his local nursery and chooses a Christmas tree before heading back to the kitchen to bake some Christmassy stained glass biscuits which are a Du Beke family favourite.
Stained glass biscuits
Makes approximately 20, depending on the size of cutters
Ingredients
150g unsalted butter, softened
75g golden caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla or orange extract
200g plain flour, plus a little extra to dust
Approximately 8-10 coloured hard-boiled sweets (clear coloured sweets work best)
To decorate (optional):
Ready-made royal icing
Equipment: Christmas biscuit cutters of your choice, large and small,
Small piping bag
Method
1. Use a stand mixer, electric whisk or just use a bowl and wooden spoon to cream together the butter and sugar until pale and creamy
2. Add the vanilla or orange extract with the flour and stir until the mixture is combined
3. Remove from the bowl and shape the dough into a flattened ball. Place in a sandwich bag or wrap in cling film and chill for 30 minutes.
4. Separate the sweets by colour and put each of the colours separately into freezer bags. Use a rolling pin to finely crush the sweets. You can also crush them in a pestle and mortar.
5. Preheat the oven to 180C/gas 4
6. Roll the dough out on a lightly floured work surface to approximately 4mm thickness
7. Cut out various shapes using whatever Christmas cutters you have
8. Arrange the shapes on greaseproof lined baking sheets, leaving a small gap around each biscuit. Use a smaller cutter of your choice to stamp out the centre of each biscuit. The ends of piping nozzle tips are ideal for cutting small circles. Reroll the trimmings and repeat to make more biscuits.
9. Spoon about ½ heaped tsp of crushed sweets into the cut-outs, (depending on the size of the stamped shape) into the middle of each biscuit. Do not overfill with sweets or they will melt over the biscuit dough instead of just the cut-outs. Remove any crushed sweets that fall onto the biscuit dough outside of the cut-out. A small brush works well for this.
10. If you would like to hang the biscuits, use a skewer or the end of a chopstick to make a hole at the top of each biscuit. Return to the fridge for 10 minutes.
11. Bake for 12-15 minutes until pale golden and the sweets have melted
12. Remove from the open and use the skewer or chopstick to gently and carefully reopen the holes if they have closed. Allow to cool on the baking sheets. Do not attempt to move the biscuits until they have cooled and the sweets have hardened.
13. If you are going to pipe icing on the biscuits, fill the piping bag with royal icing, make a small snip at the tip. Use to pipe decorative patterns on the cookies. Allow to dry completely.
14. Thread string or thin ribbon through the holes, tie a knot and hang up. Note, the biscuits will soften over time if hung up.