St Patrick's Day 2017: Royal Icing Biscuits, attempting a new technique

 Lá Féile Pháraic shona daoibh!

(Law Fay-luh Faw-rick hun-na yeev)

St Patrick's Day is upon us, and I coincidentally wanted to make some biscuits, so I thought I'd make some and ice them accordingly! But a little differently this time...

Usually when I do royal icing I do the usual pipe a dam around the edge of the biscuit and flood fill it using a small greaseproof piping bag. However, I was surfing on Pinterest, and found a pin where someone had done flood 'filled' biscuits by dipping the biscuits in flood consistency icing. So I thought I'd give it a try.

I baked some nice little shortbread biscuits by mixing 1½ ounces (40 grammes) of very soft butter, 3 ounces (85 grammes) of icing sugar, 4½ ounces (125 grammes) of plain flour, with a dash of vanilla essence by hand in a mixing bowl until it became a nice soft dough. I rolled it to about a quarter inch (5 millmetres) thick, and it made 12 biscuits, four of each of the three shapes I had chosen. I baked them at 150°C (300°F, Gas Mk.2) for I think about 25 minutes. To be completely honest, I was doing the washing up and not watching the clock, and judged the doneness by eye and by feel: they should be a very delicate golden brown and set just around the edges. This shortbread recipe works a treat as it doesn't lose its shape and stays nice and evenly coloured.

I made some royal icing (I cheated and bought a bag of instant) and divided it into two to colour one portion green, and leave the rest white. To dip the biscuits, I scooped a spoonful of the icing out onto a plate, and dipped the biscuit face down, and used a knife to remove any excess. I dipped two of each of the four shapes into the white, and two of each into the white.

I had also made some small cone piping bags using greasproof paper, and filled them with some green and some white icing. While the dipped biscuits were still wet, I piped on the designs, using the tip of a knife to do some marbling. Now, usually I would use a cocktail stick, but I didn't have any, so I used the tip of a sharp knife, like a paring knife.

VERDICT: Personally, I actually prefer the traditional pipe and flood method: the dipping method was messy, and the icing ran incorrectly and didn't settle properly. Some of the marbling lines stuck rather than melting back into the surface, which bothered me. Maybe I just need to practise this method, or just stick to my usual pipe and flood method.

No blogs on this day in previous years.

Christmas Cake Decoration Idea

Merry Christmas, everyone! In this post, I'm going to provide you not with a recipe, but with a decoration idea for Christmas cake.

I have many different Christmas cake recipes on this blog, which I will list. If rich fruit cake is not something you would like, you could make a chocolate cake, or a gingerbread spiced cake. You don't need to honour tradition every year!

This year, I decorated the cake with a little Christmas tree and presents scene, using meringues and marzipan models. I started the process three days before Christmas, and used:

• One 8 inch (22 centimetre) round rich fruit cake
• Marzipan, as prepared below
• Meringue trees, as prepared below
• One 12 ounce (350 gramme) bag of instant royal icing powder
• Red, purple, blue, green, and yellow gel colouring
• Icing sugar

To make the meringue trees, I separated one medium egg into white and yolk, and kept the yolk for a different project. I whipped the egg white with a few drops of lemon juice until it became foamy, then gradually added 2 ounces (55 grammes) of white caster sugar while whipping until it reached stiff peaks. I mixed in a few drops of green colouring gel to get a delicate slightly minty green. I lined a baking tray with non-stick paper, and put the meringue mixture into a piping bag fitted with a star tip. I piped little swirls, about an inch and a half (4 centimetres) tall, sprinkled them with coloured hundreds and thousands, and some star shaped and snowflake shaped decorations. I baked them in an oven preheated to 120°C (250°F, Gas Mk.½) for 45 minutes. When cooked, I allowed them to cool slightly on the tray before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

I made some homemade marzipan, following this recipe but upping the almond to icing sugar ratio to 3:4, as opposed to 1:1, and adding a few extra drops of water to account for the extra sugar. I used 6 ounces (170 grammes) of ground almonds, and 8 ounces (225 grames) of icing sugar.

I rolled the marzipan to a half inch (1 centimetre) thickness, cut a circle to fit the top of the cake, and fixed it to the cake with a simple icing sugar and water glaze. Using the remaining marzipan, I divided into 5 parts, colouring each part red, purple, green, blue, and yellow. Using the marzipan, I made a selection of little presents, varying from an inch (2½ centimetres) to a quarter inch (5 millilmetres) in size, and in a few different shapes, like ovals and rectangles.

I made some royal icing (from a bag; yes, I cheated) to cover the 8 inch (22 centimetre) round fruit cake. I set aside about 3 tablespoons (45 millilitres) of the icing to ice the presents, and used the rest to coat the cake. I hit the icing with the back of a metal spoon to peak it.

I arranged the trees onto the icing while it was still wet. I filled a small greaseproof icing bag with the remaining royal icing, and arranged the marzipan presents in piles, using the icing to fix them together and decorate them with a tied ribbon effect. 

After everything was fixed to the cake, I sprinkled everything lightly with some icing sugar, to simulate some now.

Here are some more photographs of the finished cake:

 

 

THIS TIME IN 2015: Gingerbread Pandas (Wheat Free with a Dairy Free Option)
THIS TIME IN 2014: A Multitude of Different Kinds of Fudge [Back Dated]
THIS TIME IN 2013: No blog

Gingerbread Pandas (Wheat Free with a Dairy Free Option)

For my little sister (well, not so little now: she is eighteen after all), I indulged in her somewhat avid fascination with pandas and made her some gingerbread versions!

This was my first foray into dipping in thinned royal icing. I had considered dipping them completely in white chocolate, but I thought I'd give royal icing dipping a go instead; I felt that dipped fully in white chocolate, then dipped in certain places in dark chocolate, would be super chocolate overkill. Besides, the crunchy sugary coating in these ones makes me think of ice, which is appropriate.

To make the bears, I used this dough recipe, using golden syrup and adding a pinch or two of ground nutmeg. I then chilled it for about an hour before rolling out to about a quarter inch (3 millimetres) thickness and cutting out with a bear cutter. I baked them for about 10 minutes, until they were a little browned around the edges

I used some royal icing that I had made to ice the Christmas cake (these days, blasphemously, I use packs of instant royal icing because it's so much more convenient), and thinned it out with some cold water, a teaspoon at a time, until it resembled melted chocolate; a nice, running consistency. I dipped the front of the bears in the glaze, let the excess drip off while gently tapping the hand holding the biscuit off the side of the bowl, then put in on a wire rack. I cleaned up any uneven edges with a cocktail stick.

It took about an hour for the glaze to dry, and I then used melted dark chocolate to add details: dark legs, torso, ears, eye patches, and facial features. I used some royal icing at piping consistency to add eyes.

I was very pleased with how these little guys turned out! I hope my sister thinks they're as cute as I do...

January Afternoon Tea Party: Gingerbread Elephants and Chocolate Brownies (Wheat Free)

Last November I decided to throw a monthly tea party at my community centre, which has an open invitation; the rule is basically show up with something to eat and you can come in and share everything else everyone has made and partake in conversation, games, movies, or whatever we're doing.

January's theme was Bollywood, or some bizarre reason. I mentioned at the last party that I'd always wanted to have a Bollywood house party, and the others caught on to the idea and thought it'd be cool to it for out next tea party.

As such, I decided to go with some Indian themed biscuits: gingerbread elephants! I remember as a kid getting a gingerbread elephant (and I wax lyrical about the experience in this blog post) and I've always wanted to recreate it. So: another baking achievement unlocked! I also made a batch of the old faithful chocolate browies, some topped with sprinkles, some with chopped nuts.

 So, in this post I'll just describe the elephants a bit more. I used the same gingerbread recipe as in my Christmas gingerbread houses and stars, and again used instant royal icing that I coloured using gel food colours, and the eyes are M&Ms. I used greaseproof paper piping bags.

The gingerbread elephant I ate had a colourful rug on its back, which is a typical British colonial image of an Indian elephant, which would have a colourful rug on its back for people to sit on when using tamed elephants as transport.

I had three different colours on the go: turquoise, baby pink, and baby yellow (if baby yellow is indeed a thing). I used white only for outlining the rugs on the elephants' backs, their toenails, their eyelashes, and for attaching their eyes. I choses brown, blue, and green M&Ms deliberately, being three common human eye colours... not so sure about elephant eye colours.

I laid the icing bags on the table in a line: blue, pink, yellow. I picked up the first bag, filled the rug, then the second for the detailing. On the second elephant, I picked up the second bag, filled the rug, then used the third for the detailing. The next elephant, I used the third bag to fill the rug, then detailed with the first. I continued in this rotation until I ran out of elephants, meaning there was all 6 possible colour combinations.

I could have used the white for detailing too, but I wanted them to be as colourful as possible with three colours; I also thought about using some dragées for extra flair on the rugs, but they were too small for that kind of detailing. Overall, I think they were very pretty! They remind me of little pachyderm party rings.

I had some extra dough left over from cutting out the elephants, which I did using a card cutout I had drawn in freehand of a simple elephant shape. I used a sharp knife to cut around the cutout into the dough, like I did with my Dinosaur Kimberleys (which contains a recipe for soft cakey gingerbread biscuits made with egg). I cut out some stars from the excess dough and decorated them randomly with icing and M&Ms. Those were pretty tasty: the combination of gingerbread, royal icing, and candy coated chocolate in one mouthful was actually very nice and balanced, if not INCREDIBLY sweet.

I really enjoyed making these, and they were a big hit! Everything was eaten, including the brownies (which will be my next blog), a bowl of Bombay mix, and the nibbles that the guests brought too. All in all, a success.

Gingerbread Stars (Egg and Wheat Free)

I went to visit some friends in Dublin the weekend before Christmas to give out some presents, and for each friend I made something quite small, more of a token than anything else. I thought I'd make one of my friends a small handful of decorated gingerbread stars, in the spirit of the season.

These stars use the same recipe as the gingerbread houses, which is a wheat- and egg free recipe for gingerbread, but I used royal icing to decorate them, which makes them not completely egg free. Because I don't really like having egg yolks left over from separating eggs for royal icing, I bought some instant royal icing, which does the job. It's not ideal, because it starts setting pretty much as soon as you make it, meaning that each biscuit you ice the icing gets firmer. But I digress.

I used red and white because I think it's a nice Christmassy combination of colours, and it also means I only had to divide it in two and colour one half, which makes it way less fussy. I piped them with a simple snowflake design, which uses the trick of feathering to add interest to the snowflake arms.

To make the snowflake design, pipe the outline of the star about an eighth of an inch (3 millimetres) from the edge of the biscuit, then fill in to make the base. While the base is still wet, pipe a line of the accent colour from the middle of the star up the centre of each arm; pipe two little lines going across each long line. Using a cocktail stick, drag through the middle of each long line from the tips of the arms to the centre. The result can be seen in the photographs.

Leave to set, exposed to the air, for at least 6 hours, overnight is best. You can use any colour combination you like, and these can be eaten any time of year really!

FREE FROM

☑ Soya (check for soya lecithin)
☑ Yeast
☑ Wheat
☑ Eggs

CONTAINS
☒ Gluten
☒ Refined sugar products
☒ Dairy

There was no blog this time last year.