Butter cut-out biscuits

Now that Alice has turned into quite a social butterfly, when she has friends round to play, it's handy having some recipes that might keep them amused and provide them with some goodies to take home. One such recipe is Nigella Lawson's butter cut-out biscuits from How to be a Domestic Goddess – also perfect for birthday parties and makes lovely Christmas decorations (using festive cutters). It makes a huge batch of about 60 so, as Nigella suggests, I've tucked the other half of the dough away in the freezer for a future playdate. (I haven't included any pictures of the dough being made, just of girls cutting out biscuits and then enjoying them.)

Butter cut-out biscuits

175g soft unsalted butter
200g caster sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
400g plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt

Preheat the oven to 180°C/gas mark 4. Line two baking sheets with greaseproof paper.

Cream together the butter and sugar until pale and slightly moussy. Beat in the eggs and vanilla. In another bowl, combine the flour, baking powder and salt. Add these dry ingredients to the creamed/wet mixture and gently stir through until well combined. If the mixture is too sticky to roll out, add a small amount of flour. Halve the dough, form into flattish disks, wrap in clingfilm and leave to rest in the fridge for an hour or so.

Sprinkle a suitable clean surface with flour, place a disk of dough on it and sprinkle more flour over the dough. Roll out to a thickness of about 5mm and cut into shapes. It might help to keep dipping the cutter in flour as you go. Place the biscuits a little apart on the prepared baking sheets.

Bake for 8–12 minutes until they are lightly golden around the edges. Cool and continue until you have used all the dough.

Once the biscuits are fully cool, you can ice them. We didn't have time to do this, but I'd be very happy to let them continue amusing themselves (and get into a right sticky mess). To make the icing: put two tablespoons almost boiling water into a bowl, add 300g sieved icing sugar and mix together to form a thick paste, adding more water if necessary. Colour as desired and spread over the biscuits.