This week’s blog is one that I’ve wanted to try for the last year and a half, but now, I’ve finally got around to it... stained glass biscuits. They were meant to be made into Christmas baubles, but with Valentines Day just around the corner, I thought, why not make them into hearts! The other week, me and my flatmates were discussing potential themed Valentines bakes and these popped into my head. I’ve been planning these biscuits for the past 3 weeks, well that’s when I used them as an excuse to buy some heart cutters. I can safely say when I baked these this week, it was definitely a welcome distraction amidst deadlines. I said from the beginning I wouldn’t sugar coat any baking disasters I have and well, get a cup of tea and get ready to read what happened when I made these biscuits.
At the start of the week, I knew I needed some boiled sweets, that was like a mission in itself
trying to find them. All the options close to me didn’t have any, which meant my last option was a little more expensive, to buy a bag of Jolly Ranchers. I started out by creaming together the butter and the sugar, until it was smooth. This was like a workout in itself because I was stupid enough to not let the butter completely soften. I then beat in one egg and a few drops of vanilla flavouring. After using this flavouring on the cupcakes last week it’s amazing how different the flavour tastes. This flavouring will definitely last me ages, Despina made it very clear to me that she wanted me to bake more things using this. This mixture was really lumpy and even just by me hand mixing it was tough work. In the end, using the electric whisk was what was needed to make the mixture smooth. I then slowly incorporated the flour bringing the mixture into a dough. The biscuit dough was very soft at this point due to the warmth of the kitchen, so I wrapped it in clingfilm and placed it in the fridge for half an hour.
Once the dough was chilling, the next problem to contend with was drawing a heart template. The heart cutters I’d ordered were significantly smaller than what I thought they would be, so I needed to improvise. Despina kindly volunteered to draw the heart template for me on some paper and cut it out. I wanted to do a test biscuit so I knew how long to bake the biscuits for all together, I learned a lot from this first biscuit. I preheated the oven to 180 degrees. I put some baking paper on a tray and then sorted out my first biscuit. I pulled a little bit of dough and rolled it out to about 0.5cm. I drew around the heart template and used a littler heart cutter and cut out the centre. I’m actually so happy that I did this first biscuit so I didn’t waste all my dough. So for the first one, I put the crushed
sweets in straight away and then baked the biscuits for 10 minutes. Once the 10 minutes was up it was not a pretty sight in the oven, the biscuit was overdone and the sweets in the middle had gone black. I was so annoyed but relieved that I had time to solve the problem.
For the second biscuit I did, I partly baked the biscuit first and then after Jacks suggestion
put the sweet in whole rather than a crushed one. I literally watched the oven so much because I didn’t want to sweet to burn, there was minutes between it being whole to it melting. I ended up making 8 big heart biscuits, they needed to cool before they could be peeled off the baking paper. From the small hearts I cut from the big ones I put them to the side to make mini versions. I used the smallest cutter I had and cut little wholes. I baked the smaller biscuits for 4 minutes. With the sweets I had already crushed I added tiny amounts to the middle. I put them in the oven for a couple of minutes, if they needed more sweets I added a little more. By this point I was a little stressed with how they were turning out, I definitely preferred the smaller hearts. I made 15 mini hearts and the blue and pink complimented one another.
When it came to the big ones I was disappointed with how they looked. The edges weren’t
smooth because I wasn’t using a proper cutter. It got to the point where Despina and Jack used a breadknife to try and smooth the edges out so I could take a photo of them. I think I just was sad because they weren’t perfect but then I guess if I’m living by the motto to make things (im)perfect then I achieved. This bake was certainly a learning curve and next time I will use different boiled sweets rather than Jolly Ranchers. This was a prime example of me showing persistence with some encouraging words from Despina. I loved how the colours of the sweets looked which was a positive. I also take comfort in the fact that I even if I’m not happy with something I make my flatmates always seem to enjoy them. Who knows next time just put a lollipop stick through the bottom and make it a biscuit lollipop. After thinking about these biscuits and the frustration they brought out in me, I’ve come round to liking the rustic edge they have.
I’ve hoped you’ve enjoyed reading this blog and my disasters from burning the biscuits, the ragged edges of the hearts, baking them one at a time because I was that paranoid to then spending ages taking a photo of them. At the end of the day regardless of how they turned out, the process of making them did its job, distracting me. With Valentines day on Thursday, I’m going to try and make a Love Heart cake so stayed tuned for next weeks blog for whether that goes to plan or not.
Lots of Love,
Hannah x
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