Orange and Honeycomb biscuits

I was terrified by the idea of making biscuits. I have made chocolate chip cookies before and, to be honest, they are very idiot-proof. Biscuits, however, require more attention and, if you like, skill. I was therefore glad to find these on one of my favourite blogs, Spoons’n’Spades by Paula (please note, the blog does not exist anymore).

Ingredients

• 250g self raising flour
• 2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 50g caster sugar
• 1 large orange, zest and juice
• 155g butter, cold and diced
• 115g clear honey
• 1 Crunchie bar (or 50g honeycomb + 50g finely chopped chocolate)
• 50g butter, soft
• 115g icing sugar

Method

1. Into a large bowl, mix together the flour, bicarbonate of soda, caster sugar and the orange zest.
2. Rub in the cold and diced butter until you have a breadcrumb consistency.  Stir in the honey and mix to form a stiff dough.
3. Take teaspoons of the dough and roll them out into balls.  Place them onto lined baking trays, spaced a little apart, and flatten them gently with the palm of your hand.
4. Take the Crunchie bar and crumble it into very small pieces. Scatter on half of the biscuits (or on all of them, as I did).
5. Bake in a 190c preheated oven for around 10 minutes, or until they are cooked through but haven’t yet started to colour.  Transfer to a wire rack and allow to cool completely.
6. To make the icing, beat together the soft butter, icing sugar and 1 teaspoon of orange juice until you have a smooth mix.
7. Spread a small amount onto the top half of the biscuits, then sandwich together with another one.

Tips

• The dough you will work with is sticky and hard to start with, so obtaining perfectly nugget-size balls can be hard. Keep on working them with your hands and the warmth from your body will gently melt the butter and make the dough more elastic and pliable.
• To ensure all of the biscuits were of the same size, I used a measuring teaspoon and piled the dough in it, then scraped it on top as you would do to obtain a level teaspoon’s worth of flour

Advertisement