Rainbow recipes

These do take a while to achieve – so set aside an afternoon to relax and create!

Makes 12 Unicorns, 16 rainbows

✱ 350g (12oz) plain flour, sieved

✱ 100g (3½oz) self-raising flour, sieved

✱ 125g (4oz) unsalted butter, cubed

✱ 125g (4oz) granulated sugar

✱ 125g (4oz) golden syrup

✱ 1 large egg, lightly beaten

✱ 2-3tbsp cold water

✱ Red, yellow, green, blue and violet paste colour

You will need:

✱ 2 baking sheets lined with baking parchment

✱ Unicorn cookie cutter (available from partypieces.co.uk; 01635 201 844)

1 Put both flours and the butter in a processor and whizz to create a crumb-like texture.

2 add the sugar, golden syrup and egg and blitz until just combined. add the water if the mix is too dry to come together.

3 divide dough into six. add a dot of paste colour to each piece of dough and a dot of yellow and smidgen of red for the orange colour. we used 60g (2oz) violet,

75g (2½oz) blue, 125g (4oz) green, 150g (5oz) yellow, 175g (6oz) orange, and 225g (8oz) red. work each colour into each separate piece of dough.

4 roll each piece of dough into a long thin sausage about 30cm (12in) long on a piece of baking parchment. Pop in freezer.

5 keep the violet out, then roll

the blue into a long rectangle, just big enough to wrap around the violet sausage. Then, roll out the green, and wrap around. repeat with the yellow, orange and red. Freeze for several hours.

6 Heat oven to 180°c or Gas Mark 4. cut 8 x 2cm (3¼ x ¾in) thick slices and 12 x 1.25cm (4¾ x ½in) slices. cut thin discs in half to make rainbow biscuits and place on a lined baking tray.

7 leave the thicker discs to soften for 20mins then, on baking parchment, roll out until large enough that you can stamp out unicorn biscuits. Peel away any trimmings and leave the unicorn biscuits on the paper.

8 bake biscuits for 5-10 mins until just firm, taking care to watch them closely.