Baby shower biscuits - lavendar and orange cookies with lemon icing

On Thursday, we held a baby shower at work for Belinda and Smreen, who are about to give birth to their first children. Everyone brought along something to eat as part of the celebrations. There were pink and blue iced cupcakes, dips, cheesecake, lemon slice and pies and sausage rolls.


My contribution was a batch of lavendar and orange flavoured biscuits in the shape of prams and baby bottles. They were a pleasant surpise taste-wise to me and my colleagues. I have to admit I am not a fan of sugar cookies because I find them quite bland, but these cookies were delicious. They were quite soft, and had a lovely shortbread-like flavour with just the faintest hint of lavendar. I was sceptical about the lemon icing, but it worked well, with good coverage of the biscuits.


The recipe that I used for these biscuits was from The Australian Womens Weekly Cookies book. You could make these biscuits in any shape that takes your fancy. My only tip is to make sure that you refrigerate the dough for the required time and then work with it quickly, as it softens fast and becomes almost impossible to cut shapes from after that.


The recipe is as follows:


Biscuits


125g butter at room temperature
2 teaspoons orange zest
55g sugar
1 egg yolk
150g plain flour, sifted
35g cornflour (cornstarch), sifted
60g almond meal
1 tablespoon dried lavendar, chopped


Put the butter, orange zest, sugar and the egg yolk into the bowl of a stand mixer and beat until light and fluffy. Remove the bowl from the mixer and add the flours, almond meal and lavendar, and combine with a wooden spoon.


Turn the dough out onto a floured work surface and knead until smooth. Flatten the dough with the palm of your hand, and place between two large pieces of baking paper. Roll the dough out with a rolling pin to a thickness of approximately 5mm. Cover the dough, and keeping it flat, chill in the refrigerator for 30 minutes.


Preheat your oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Line two baking trays with baking paper or silicone mats.


Remove the chilled dough from the fridge and, working quickly, cut out shapes using a biscuit cutter. Place the shapes onto the baking trays, leaving room between the biscuits for spreading.


Put the baking trays into the oven, and bake the biscuits for roughly 12 minutes or until golden brown. Remove the biscuits from the oven and allow them to cool on the trays.


Lemon icing


1 egg white
240g icing (confectioners) sugar, sifted
2 teaspoons plain flour
2 teaspoons lemon juice
food colouring in desired colours (I used blue and cochineal)


Put the egg white and half the icing sugar into a bowl and stir until combined. Next, stir through the remaining icing sugar until you have a thick but firm icing. Divide the mixture into as many colour icings as you want to make, and tint the icing the desired shade. Spread the icing over the entirety of each biscuit with a knofe or small metal spatula.


Royal icing


240g icing (confectioners) sugar, sifted
1 egg white


Beat the egg white with a hand mixer until it is foamy (which I neglected to do!!), then beat in the icing sugar in small increments until you have a stiff but pipeable icing. (Mine was too thin, hence the blurring of some of my piping - just add more icing sugar to get the necessary consistency.) Spoon the icing into a piping bag and pipe the desired decorations onto the iced biscuits after the first layer of icing has set.



On a different note, I have been awarded the Over The Top award by SilverMoon Dragon of Dragon Musings. Thank you so much!


The rules of this award are to answer the questions below with one word answers, and pass the award on to 6 of your favourite blogs.

Here is the meme part:

1. Where is your cell phone? Handbag
2. Your hair? Long
3. Your mother? Protective
4. Your father? Old
5. Your favorite food? Chocolate!
6. Your dream last night? None
7. Your favorite drink? Coke
8. Your dream/goal? Contentment
9. What room are you in? Study
10. Your hobby? Baking
11. Your fear? Poverty
12. Where do you want to be in 6 years? Content
13. Where were you last night? Home
14. Something you aren’t? Patient
15. Muffins? Apple
16. Wish list item? Car
17. Where did you grow up? Toowoomba
18. Last thing you did? Blogged
19. What are you wearing? PJs
20. Your TV? Off
21. Your pets? None
22. Your friends? Everywhere
23. Your life? Good
24. Your mood? Chilled
25. Missing someone? Yes
26. Vehicle? None
27. Something you’re not wearing? Shoes
28. Your favorite store? etsy
29. Your favorite color? Pink
30. When was the last time you laughed? Dinnertime
31. Last time you cried? Unsure
32. Your best friend? Veronica
33. One place that I go over and over? Melbourne
34. One person who emails me regularly? Aphrodite
35. Favorite place to eat? Home

I am passing this award on to:

Ivy of Kopiaste

Tammy of Wee Treats by Tammy

Happy Cook of My Kitchen Treasures

Natalia of Gatti Fili E Farina

Adele of Tales of the Basil Queen

Miranda of A Duck in Her Pond