Thursday 20 December 2007

Glad Tidings?

I'm not exactly organised with Christmas this year. I'm not exactly organised with ANYTHING this year, least of all blog posts. So I don't really come bearing tidings of great joy or anything like that.

The stained glass window biscuits above are part of the presents I gave to my friends this year (we broke up from school yesterday), but I'm not going to give you the recipe for several reasons:


1. I don't actually know if they taste very nice. They're edible, and very pretty, but their taste is pretty... meh. This is lost on festive teenagers, so I don't feel guilty about palming them off on my friends

2. It's not a very exciting recipe. In fact, if you want to make these, just use a normal shortbread or sugar cookie recipe or whatever, and cut down the sugar a bit. These don't have much sugar in at all because of the sweet in the middle.
3. I was spectacularly unsuccessful at making these (example: I burnt the first batch cause I'd deviated from the recipe and not allowed for it, and I fell over the dog when getting the third batch out of the oven and dropped half of them. I then had to eat them, because I can never bring myself to throw food away. This is not a good recipe for hygeine or obesity).

All you have to do is cut the cookie dough into whatever shape you like and use a very small cutter (or the wrong end of a piping thingy, if you want them to be circular) and put half a boiled sweet (I used Fox's) in the gap. Bake them for however long (don't ask me...) and let them cool COMPLETELY on the tray before you lift them off, so that the sweet has set.



Likewise, these are not tremendously original - they're just regular shortbread (240g or 80z butter and flour each, and 60g or 2oz sugar) but I added some cinnamon, mixed spice and orange zest to make them a bit Christmassy. I also sprinkled a little caster sugar over the top once they'd come out of the oven and were still warm, to make them a bit sparkly. These are going to be for my cousin, since I only ever buy him food anyway.

Presents left to buy: 7
Days til Christmas: 5
Heart attack: impending.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

LOL! Well, the cookies look pretty if its any consolation! Did the dog happen to get any from the third batch when she inadvertently hindered your efforts? ;)

These stained glass cookies appear to be pretty popular in the blogosphere, but alas, all my recipients are adults and hence I don't think they'd delight in receiving these as much as I'd enjoy making them :( I need more kids in my acquaintance!

Ellie @ Kitchen Wench

Anna said...

My dog got the ones with obvious dog hair on... ^__^

Yeah, I've seen them a few times (generally more sucessful than mine!). I think they are a novelty rather than an adult thing, but they're good for something festive.

Thanks for commenting, and Merry Christmas!

essay best said...

cheese cakes are yummy! i saw a post on fb yesterday which said " i always carry a knife with me, just in case cheese cake. love your blog keep it up.