Make these for Valentine’s Day (or any day of the year) for your friends, family and loved ones. You can pipe their names on to the biscuits to personalise them. People will love the effort you have gone to.
Makes: 12 (plus centre cutouts)
For the biscuit dough
200g salted butter
85g caster sugar
270g plain flour
For the sugar glass
250g caster sugar
165g liquid glucose
55g water
For the royal icing
100g icing sugar
20g egg white
Plus extra icing sugar and egg white to adjust consistency if needed
Plus
Sprinkles of your choice
Edible silver/gold paint
To make the dough, beat together the butter and sugar in a mixing bowl until smooth and fluffy. Add the flour and mix until just combined. The dough should be slightly sticky, but soft and easy to handle. If necessary, wrap the dough in clingfilm and chill for 10 to 15 minutes or until firm enough to roll out.
Turn out on to a well-floured surface and roll out to about 3mm/⅛in thick. Use a large circle cutter to cut out 12 shapes, and transfer to a lined baking tray (which you can fit in the fridge). Use a smaller heart-shaped cutter to stamp out the centres. You can place the centres on another baking tray and bake them, too.
Refrigerate for 15 minutes, while you heat the oven to 180C (160C fan)/350F/gas mark 4. Bake for 10-12 minutes. Let cool for 10 minutes on the baking tray, then gently transfer to a wire rack to finish cooling.
When the biscuits are cool, place them on greaseproof paper, then make the sugar glass. Put the sugar, liquid glucose and water in a small saucepan. Stir to combine. Heat on high, and don’t stir until the mixture reaches 150C. At this point, remove the pan from the heat and use a large spoon to transfer the sugar syrup into the centres of the biscuits. Immediately scatter over sprinkles. Leave the sugar syrup for about 20 minutes until hardened completely, then peel off the greaseproof paper.
Make the royal icing; whisk together the icing sugar and egg white until smooth and a pipeable consistency. Transfer to a piping bag and snip a small opening. Pipe dots and hearts on your biscuits. You can also personalise them by piping names. Once the icing has semi-set (about two hours), you can paint it with a little edible silver/gold paint.
