Versatile Vanilla Biscuits

These versatile biscuits would be great for birthday parties, tea parties, Mothers Day or just when you need some easy baking fun.  They are SO easy to make I made them when I had 6 children in my house, my 3 girls and their 3 friends.  All 6 children love baking and had loads of fun being creative with the dough.

You can colour the dough any colours you like, I divided mine into 4 and had plain, chocolate, crimson (from claret gel food colouring) and kneaded sugar sprinkles into the final portion.

We made layered biscuits, striped biscuits, swirls and marbled creations.  You don't need fancy cutters either, I used round, star and heart cutters but use what you have.  Play dough cutters will usually work just as well as baking ones and are great if you are baking themed biscuits for a party.

Swirl Biscuits

250g butter, softened

¾ cup caster sugar

1 free range egg

1 tsp vanilla extract

2½ cups plain flour

1 Tblsp cocoa powder

Cream the butter and sugar together with a spoon in a bowl or use a mixer.  Add the egg and vanilla and beat until combined.  Add the flour and mix until a smooth dough forms.

Divide the dough into four, or however many colours you want/need.  Knead the cocoa powder into one portions, colour other portions with food colouring.  I used gel food colouring and kneaded the colour in.

Wrap the dough portions separately in cling film and chill in the fridge for 30 minutes.  We used this time to brainstorm ideas, gather the cookie cutters and have a snack.

Preheat your oven to 180C/160 Fan.  Line two baking trays with non-stick baking paper.

To make swirls:

Roll each piece of dough out on a floured surface into a rectangle shape about 18cm x 20cm.  Lay one rectangle of dough on top of the other, roll gently together then trim the edges into a neat rectangle.  Roll into a log starting at the longest side.  I folded over the first 1cm then rolled around that.

Slice the log into at 5mm slices. I used a serrated bread knife, using a very light slicing action, and this helped to stop the logs being squashed as I sliced off the biscuits. 

To make striped biscuits:

Use the same method as the swirl biscuits then cut the rectangle into strips.  Place the strips on top of each other until your happy with the height of the strip.  Cut 5mm wide slices from it to form the biscuits. 

To make the marbled biscuits:

Knead the trimmings from the swirls together and roll out.  Use cutters to cut out shapes.

Put the biscuits on the prepared baking trays and bake for about 15 minutes at 180C/160C Fan until just turning golden around the edges.  Cool on the trays for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.