Vanilla & chocolate angel biscuits

Who could resist these beautiful Christmas biscuits? Give them as presents and get the kids to help you make them. But beware - they taste as good as they look!

Preparation time: 15 minutes
Cooking time: 30 minutes
Makes: 8

What you need:

• 125 g (4 oz) butter, cubed
• 125 g (4 oz) Billington's Light Muscovado Sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 175 g (6 oz) Allinson Wholemeal Plain Flour
• 1 tablespoon cocoa
• 1 tsp ground ginger
• 1 large egg and 1 yolk
• 125 g (4 oz) Billington's Golden Icing Sugar
• Gold or silver edible dusting powder

What you do:

1. Put the butter into a food processor add the Light Muscovado Sugar and vanilla extract and blend until smooth.
2. Add the flour, cocoa, ginger, whole egg and yolk. Blend again until the mixture comes together to form a ball.
3. Turn onto a large sheet of baking parchment and knead the dough lightly for a couple of minutes until it is smooth.
4. Wrap in the parchment paper and chill for 30 minutes.
5. Roll out the cookie dough between two sheets of baking parchment until it's 2.5 mm (1/8th inch) thick.
6. Stamp out 6 angels using a cutter. Ease away the cookie dough surrounding the heart shapes and roll out these trimmings between two more sheets of baking parchment. Stamp out 2 more angel shapes.
7. Take a small plain piping nozzle and stamp the tip near the top centre of the angel, to make a hole. Leave the shapes on the baking parchment and slide the paper onto two firm baking sheets.
8. Bake at 180C (350F) Gas Mark 4 for 10-12 minutes until cookies are firm and golden.
9. Cool on the paper for 5 minutes, then use a palette knife to cool the cookies completely on a wire rack.
10. Sift the Golden Icing Sugar into a bowl, add 1tbsp of cold water, stir and add another 1tbsp of water to make a smooth piping consistency.
11. Put a fine plain nozzle into a plastic piping bag and pipe a halo and wings on the angels.
12. When the icing is firm, thread some white raffia through the holes and hang onto twigs to display as a gift.
13. For white chocolate iced biscuits, melt 150g (5 oz) white chocolate in a heatproof bowl over a pan of simmering water and use to decorate biscuits instead of the icing.

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