Gift Challenge: Easter Success!

So Easter has come and gone, and the long, long, long weekend has too (Sparky unfortunately had to work, so it wasn't so long here, but we made the most of it nonetheless) and I'm happy to report that I didn't stumble at the first gift challenge hurdle. I ended up gifting everyone with homemade presents this year!

I just made up little parcels for each of the families and included homemade chocolates in different colours/flavours, as well as some homemade Easter biscuits - some were Easter eggs with marshmallow in the centre, others were chocolate-dipped and others had 100s and 1000s sprinkled on top. By all accounts (mine included - I had to sample the merchandise first) they were pretty tasty!

  

I already posted on my chocolate making, and the recipe for the biscuits was super easy. It was actually the first time I'd made cookie-cutter biscuits before so the dough-rolling part was new to me, but simple all the same. Here's the recipe if you're keen to try it some time:

You'll need:


125g butter, cubed
1/2 cup caster sugar
1 egg
1/4 tsp vanilla essence
1 cup plain flour
1 cup SR flour

1. Preheat oven to 160C and line two trays with baking paper.

2. Cream the butter and sugar. Then add the egg and vanilla, beating well. Fold in the combined flours, forming a soft dough. (Mine was quite crumbly at this stage, but when I kneaded it together it stuck well).

3. Turn the dough out onto a sheet of baking paper, kneading/rolling it together to get a good dough consistency. Cover with another sheet of baking paper and roll out to around 5mm thick.

4. Cut out shapes using cookie cutters and pop onto your prepared baking trays.

5. Bake in batches for around 10-15 minutes or until golden.

To make the marshmallow filling you need:


bag of marshmallows, halved (although this depends on the size of your biscuits, larger ones probably would need a whole marshmallow)

1. Pop a few biscuits on a plate and top with a marshmallow. Microwave for 10 seconds and then sandwich with another biscuit. Easy, sticky and tasty!