As promised, here is another recipe for Valentine’s, who wouldn’t want one of these lovely homemade Valentine’s Biscuits, a real treat, lovingly made, beautifully decorated from the one they love. Wrapped individually in a cellophane bag, tied with a pretty ribbon, these biscuits could melt anyones heart.

I have made these before, using lemon zest as the recipe suggests, this time I used orange zest and it was gorgeous. It was however my first attempt at this type of icing, making the first batch to the texture of toothpaste to outline the biscuit, then when dry, making the icing a little runnier to fill the centre. I don’t think they turned out to badly, but like with most things baking related, you just need practice and I definitely need a steadier hand, but I’ll get there.

You can decorate your biscuits however you wish, you could make them a darker pink, white or red, add whatever decorations you please, put them in a pretty box, nestled on some tissue paper, what ever takes your fancy and if you don’t have a piping bag & nozzles, just make a simple water icing of icing sugar & water, cover your biscuits and decorate. You could even dip them in melted chocolate, this would be lovely with the orange zest or roll out fondant icing, use the same size cutter that you used for your biscuits and cover your biscuits this way.

Just have fun with them.

Buon appetito



For the biscuits:
125g butter at room temperature
75g caster sugar
1 egg yolk
1 lemon, zested
200g plain flour

Oven 190c/Gas 5 – Makes 18

Cream the butter and sugar with a wooden spoon until smooth (you know what I am going to say here… yes I used my Artisan), then beat in the egg yolk and lemon zest. Sift in the flour and mix to a dough. Wrap in cling film and put into the fridge for 30 minutes.

On a lightly floured surface, roll the dough to about the thickness of a pound coin, and stamp out shapes with a cutter. Re-roll and cut any leftover scraps. Place the cookies on a large baking tray and bake for 10 – 12 minutes, until golden.

Cool on a wire rack, before decorating.



For the Royal Icing:
4 eggs whites
900g icing sugar

Combine all the ingredients in a mixing bowl,, starting with the liquids first.

Add the dry ingredients and whisk or beat for about 5 minutes if using an electric beater or whisk, or for longer if using a wooden spoon. Whisk slowly to start with to avoid clouds of icing sugar covering you and your kitchen. A little trick that I do here is to cover the mixer with a clean tea towel and hold it around the mixing bowl until the icing sugar is well incorporated.

Continue whisking until the ingredients form a thick, smooth paste that is bright white in colour and has the consistency of toothpaste.

You can add colouring at this stage, I recommend the gel/paste type as you really don’t want to add too much liquid. You can buy these online (Amazon) or at a good cookery shop such as Art of Living.

You are now ready to fill your piping bag and pipe a thin neat line around the edge of your biscuits.

When you are happy and finished your out lines, leave them to dry for about 5 minutes, meanwhile add a little more water, a drop at a time to your icing mixture until it becomes just pourable and roughy the same consistency as custard. You are now ready to flood ice your biscuits.

Now you can decorate them to your hearts (please excuse the pun) content.