The Australian Women’s Weekly Food Magazine
TAKE-HOME TREATS
3 Sift flour, spices and bicarb into a large bowl; add butter mixture, egg and extract, stir until combined.
4 Knead dough on a floured surface until smooth. Roll dough between sheets of baking paper until 5mm thick; refrigerate for 10 minutes.
5 Using round-, heart- and also star-shaped cutters, cut out shapes from dough; place on trays.
6 Bake for 10 minutes or until browned. Cool on trays.
7 Meanwhile, make royal icing.
8 Decorate biscuits by spreading or piping with royal icing; decorate with cachous.
ROYAL ICING
Beat egg whites in a small bowl with an electric mixer until frothy; gradually beat in sifted icing sugar, a tablespoon at a time, until stiff peaks form. Tint the icing with your favourite colour. Keep icing covered with a damp cloth, or enclosed tightly in plastic piping bags; the icing will develop a crust once it’s exposed to the air. When the kids leave your house after a fun food-filled day, give them a treat that will inspire them to cook up a storm in their own home. Buy a medium-sized cardboard noodle box (from party shops or kitchen-supply shops) for each child and fill them with homemade biscuits or cooking-themed goodies (see below). Close the box and place a cookie cutter on top. Tie the cutter to the box using kitchen twine.
BICKIE BONANZA
Fill the take-home treat box with plain and sweet biscuits. And don’t forget to add the gingerbread biscuits that the kids made and decorated – if they haven’t all been eaten already!
GOODIE BAGS FOR CHEFS
There are many small, inexpensive cookbooks and plenty of cheap cooking utensils for sale. So instead of biscuits for take-home treats, send the chefs home with a cookbook for kids, a spatula, mini muffin pan, plus their “tea towel apron”, to keep their culinary ambitions alive.