Ingredients
- For lime & vanilla biscuits
- 300g plain flour
- ΒΌ tsp salt
- 150g golden caster sugar
- zest 3 limes
- 150g cold unsalted butter, diced
- 1 large egg
- 1 tsp vanilla bean paste
To decorate
- 400g royal icing sugar
- juice 1-2 lemons (about 75ml), or 2-4 limes
- food colouring of choice
Method
STEP 1
Line a couple of trays with baking parchment and heat oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4. Mix together the flour, salt, caster sugar and lime zest (keep the zested limes for the icing). Add the butter and rub together until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs.
STEP 2
Beat the egg and vanilla bean paste together with a fork, then mix into the other ingredients. Knead until even. Chill until firm, then roll on a lightly floured surface until about 4-5mm thick. Stamp out intro heart shapes, transfer to baking trays, then chill again for 15 mins before baking for 15-17 mins until golden. Remove from the oven, transfer to a wire rack and leave to cool before decorating.
STEP 3
For the icing, put the royal icing sugar into a bowl, add about 65ml lemon or lime juice, with your choice of food colouring and use a metal spoon or electric mixer to beat until it is thick and glossy. If the icing is too thick though, it will be hard to pipe. Take a quarter of the icing, put into a piping bag fitted with a No 2 (very small round) piping nozzle and start to decorate your biscuits. Set the biscuits in the fridge to settle.
