Recipe of the Week - Christmas Stained Glass Biscuits

Today will be remembered as the day of the hurricane.

Yesterday the MET Office issued a red warning for storm force winds across the central belt of Scotland today. Schools were closed and the police advised against any travel.

There were times when we thought the front of the house was going to blow in! Amazingly, so far, there has been no damage in our little street. Plenty more so in other places though.

What better thing to do then, than bake some Christmas biscuits to put on the tree, as well as plenty extras to eat!

Making these stained glass Christmas biscuits is one of our Christmas traditions.

To make them you need any basic biscuit (cookie) dough, some Christmassy cutters and some boiled sweets (candies?).

I use a recipe I have adapted from Nigella (who else?)

To make wheat & dairy free Christmas biscuits you will need:

10oz Doves Farm Wheat Free Self Raising Flour

2tsp mixed spice

3 oz dairy free margarine

3 oz light brown sugar

2tbsp runny honey

1-2 beaten eggs

~Put the flour and spice in a food processor and blitz until mixed.

~Add the butter, then blitz, then add the sugar and blitz again.

~Now add the honey, blitz it in, and slowly add the eggs.. You probably won't need all of the eggs, but you might, so go slowly here, stopping the blitzing when everything comes together as a dough.

~Now roll out your biscuit dough on a floured surface and cut out your shapes then place on greased baking trays.

~Once on the trays cut out a shape in the centre and place a boiled sweet in this centre.

~If your sweet is too big for the hole in the biscuit, just crush it up a little with a pestle and mortar and fill the hole with chunks of sweetie instead.

~You will also need to make little holes at the top of each shape you plan to hang on the tree. Use a skewer or cocktail stick for this.

~Bake at 180C for around 15-20 minutes, after which your biscuits will be golden and the sweets will have melted and filled up the middle.

~Leave to cool on the trays as the stained glass centre will be hot, hot, hot!

~Once cooled you can thread them and hang them up. If you find that the hole has closed up a little in cooking, thread a needle and sew the string through it. Works perfectly!

They look so pretty hanging on the tree with the fairy lights shining behind them.

I think we have hung them high enough so that they won't be too much temptation to a certain little two year old :0)

Oh and I also make these biscuits at Christmas without the stained glass part, just for eating, adding just sprinkle of icing sugar over them when they are cool.

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