Double vanilla biscuits

Yumtastic! It's the weekend and so I'm treating my sweet tooth to some delicious biscuits. My friend gave me a gorgeous bird biscuit cutter so these are extra cute. The recipe is based on one I found on the WeightWatchers website (I've recently signed up - it's a great resource and I've lost 3lb in my first week, wow!), but I've added some littlePod sparkle to it.




Double Vanilla Biscuits (based on WeightWatchers Christmas Cookies)

makes about 30 biscuits

Ingredients:

115g caster sugar
65g polyunsaturated margarine
1 small egg, lightly beaten
1 tbsp golden syrup
1 tbsp lemon juice
1.5 tsp LittlePod vanilla paste
175g plain flour
0.5 tsp bicarbonate of soda
0.5 tsp baking powder
1 tsp mixed spice

50g icing sugar
1 tsp littlePod vanilla extract
1 tsp (ish) hot water

Instructions:

Mix the sugar and marg in a large bowl with an electric whisk until it is smooth. Add the egg, golden syrup, lemon juice and LittlePod paste and whisk some more.

In another bowl, sift the flour, bicarb, baking powder and mixed spice and mix. Add the dry mixture to the first bowl a little at a time, beating thoroughly. You're aiming for a stiff dough, so if you're mixing isn't making any difference, sift some more flour in a little at a time.

Divide this mix into two balls and wrap each ball in cling film and leave in the fridge for 30min. Preheat your oven to 180C/350F/Gas mark 4.

Lightly spray 2 baking trays with cooking spray. Lightly flour your worktop and knead the two balls of dough together again. Now roll it evenly so it's about 0.5cm thick all over. Use your cute cutter and transfer them over to the trays, leaving a gap of at least 2cm between each shape. Re-roll and repeat to use as much of the dough as possible. (I added eyes to my birds at this point with a skewer.) Put in the oven for about 8min, check and turn after 5min. You want them to be an even golden brown. Transfer to a cooling rack.

When they're completely cooled, mix the remaining ingredients to make a delicious icing. Use an icing bag to draw something pretty on each of your biscuits, it doesn't need to be the same each time! Let the icing dry, then keep the biscuits in an airtight container for up to 4 days, if they last that long!