Iced love heart biscuits recipe

These cute little iced love heart biscuits are just like those sherbet sweets we all know and love. Using pastel food colourings and writing icing pens, you can make these delicious iced biscuits in no time and the kids can help you to decorate them too. These buttery biscuits are ideal for Valentine's Day as you can personalise them and write a special message to your loved ones. Iced biscuits are a really fun project that take only 35 minutes to make, plus you'll end up with a big batch of them, so they're perfect for sharing!

Ingredients

• 125g unsalted butter
• 150g caster sugar
• 1tsp vanilla extract
• 1 medium egg
• 250g plain flour

For the decoration:

• 1kg icing sugar
• small jug of water
• pastel food colouring: pink, purple, green, yellow etc

You will also need:

• circle cookie cutter
• 5-10 piping bags with 2-3mm round nozzle
• wooden skewers

Method

1. Preheat the oven 160C, gas 3 and line a baking tray with greaseproof paper.
2. Cream the butter and sugar together then gradually beat in the egg and vanilla extract. Fold in the flour to form a dough. You can use your hands at the point to bring the mixture together. If the dough is very soft, wrap in cling film and chill for about 15 mins or so until it's firm enough to roll out.
3. Roll the dough out on a lightly floured surface using a rolling pin. Roll until about 3-4mm thick. Cut out circles using your circle cutter and place the biscuits onto the baking tray.
4. Bake for 15-20 mins until golden. Leave the biscuits to cool on the baking tray before removing.
   
5. Meanwhile, mix the icing sugar and a little water, adding the weater gradually, to form a thick paste and divide between 5 bowls. Add a different food colouring to each bowl. You want the icing mix to be thick enough to pipe, so add more icing sugar if necessary.
6. Spoon some of the mixture into a piping bag and pipe a line around each biscuit to create a border. Repeat with different colours, to make different-coloured biscuits. Pipe a heart on some biscuits and write a message on others. Leave to set.
7. To fill the biscuits in, add more water to the icing to loosen it - it should be runny enough to run off a spoon but thick enough to remain in the borders. Using a teaspoon or a piping bag, fill the biscuit sin, using a skewer to get the icing into all the gaps. Leave your iced biscuits to set.