Iced Biscuits using egg-free ‘Royal Icing’

Iced biscuits are cute, pretty and very popular with my children. The icing takes a simple roll out biscuit to another level and gives so many options for giving them extra character. The difficulty for us is that you need an icing that can easily be piped but sets hard and it’s quite difficult to get a suitably firm icing that is like royal icing but not containing egg.

This recipe is perfect for ‘flooding’ the top of biscuits – giving them a hard to the touch but soft on eating frosting. I’m not sure it would stand up to giving three dimensional details, more experiments will have to follow!

Iced Biscuits (dairy-free, egg-free, nut-free, soya-free, sesame-free, vegetarian and vegan)

makes about 18-20 small biscuits or about 12 large

• 2/3 cup of granulated sugar
• 1/4 cup sunflower oil
• 1/4 cup oat milk
• 1 tsp vanilla paste
• 1 cup plus 2 tbsps plain flour
• 1/3 cup cocoa powder
• 1 tbsp cornflour
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt

– Vigorously mix together the sugar, oil, vanilla and oat milk.

– Sift in the flour, cocoa powder, cornflour, baking powder and salt.

– Mix well to make a firm dough. Wrap in clingfilm and rest in the fridge for at least half an hour.

– Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Centigrade

– Unwrap the dough and roll out to between 0.5 and 1cm thickness. Cut out with a cookie cutter and transfer to a lined baking sheet.

– Cook for 8 minutes. Cool briefly on the baking sheet before transferring to a wire rack.

‘Royal Icing’ (dairy-free, egg-free, nut-free, soya-free, sesame-free, gluten-free, vegetarian and vegan)

enough to ice all the biscuits you just made!

• 1 cup icing sugar, sifted
• 2tsps oat milk
• 1/2 tsp liquid glucose
• food colouring, as required

– Whisk all the ingredients together for a good few minutes until smooth and fairly thick

– Separate into as many bowls as colours you’ll require. Stir natural colourings into each and then place in piping bags.

– Using a piping bag with a fine nozzle, pipe on the border of the desired shape and fill in. For a spotted effect, pipe different coloured dots onto the wet icing.

– Leave to set for at least 12 hours, or overnight