Who could resist these honey-flavoured Easter bunny biscuits? They’re good with a cup of tea and make wonderful Easter gifts for children.
Prep time 80 minutes/Cook time 10 minutes/Makes 12
Ingredients:
For the biscuits (cookies):
75g (3 oz) butter, softened
3 tbsp clear honey
25g (1 oz) caster sugar
125g (1 cup) plain flour, plus extra for dusting
25g (1 oz) cornflour
To decorate
3-4 tbsp apricot jam
a little icing sugar, for dusting
1 x 250g (9 oz) pack blue ready-to-roll icing
150g (1/3 lb) white ready-to-roll icing
multicoloured confetti cake decorations, for the eyes
red and pink heart confetti cake decorations, for the nose
edible pink food powder or dust, or pink glimmer sugar for the ear blush
black food colouring, for the whiskers
Method:
Cream together the butter, honey and sugar until pale and fluffy, then beat in the flour and cornflour until the mixture comes together as a dough. Wrap in clingfilm, flatten into a rough rectangle, then chill for 30 minutes until firm.
Pre-heat the oven to 180°C (160°C fan/355F/gas mark 4). Lightly flour the work surface, then roll the dough out to about 2-3mm (1 in) thick.
Using a plain 8cm (3 in) diameter cutter, stamp out 6 circles from the dough and place on a baking tray lined with baking paper. Reroll the remainder of the dough into a rectangle about 10 x 30cm (4 x 12 in) in size and cut six 10 x 5cm (4 x 2 in) rectangles (make a cardboard template to trace around if this is easier). Put on the baking tray and bake all the biscuits for 8-10 minutes in the pre-heated oven until golden brown around the edges. Allow to cool on the tray for 5 minutes then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely before decorating.
Dust your work surface with icing sugar. Roll out the blue icing very thinly, cut out circles and rectangles in the same sizes as the biscuits (use a fluted cutter if you wish) and press gently onto the top of each biscuit. Roll out a third of the white icing and cut 12 circles with a plain 4cm (1 ½ in) biscuit cutter. Use the 8cm (3 in) cutter to trim a little off the base of 6 discs (so that the curve matches the biscuit shape) to form the bunny faces, and cut a straight line for the remaining discs for the rectangular biscuits. Brush the underside of each disc with a very slightly damp clean paintbrush, and stick the dampened side onto the iced biscuits.
Roll out the remainder of the white icing and cut out 6 x 4cm (2 ½ x 1 ½ in) rectangles. Cut a 1.5cm- (1/2 in-) wide strip from either side of each circle, to form a pair of ears. Arrange on each round biscuit, dampening the underside first. To make the larger ears for the rectangular bunnies, cut out 6 more circles with a 5-6cm (2 in) round cutter (rerolling the icing as necessary) and use in the same way.
Use a little water to stick on cake decorations for the eyes and nose (applied using a clean artist’s fine paintbrush). Dab a little edible dust down the centre of the ears using your fingertip, or if you’re using the glimmer sugar, brush the centre of the ears with a little water then shake on some glimmer sugar.
Paint the whiskers on with black food colouring, using a very fine brush.
