Put a flower on it

Have you noticed that flowers are everywhere.

Everywhere I look is a magnificent arrangement of flowers or using flowers, picture of flowers.........

Its almost like the put a bird on it craze from a few years ago.

I was inspired after looking through Pinterest to create a cake with flowers.

I then saw a beautiful post by Lisa from We Are Scout and that cemented my idea and what I wanted to do.

I was chatting to my long time friend who bakes lots and uses flowers lots and I was asking her where she sourced her fresh edible flowers......

Which ended up being from Darling Mills Farm  (Sydney Based)

The flower hunt prompted Mr 11 and I to do a  early morning trip on Saturday to the markets - which was freezing but lovely. 

I had to get in early - not only because they sell out of flowers so quickly but also because I had a book signing to go to! 
I was signing my book By The Block at the Sydney Quilt and Craft Fair

Which very excitingly won an award

Anyway back to the biscuits

Chocolate biscuits with royal icing and pretty little flowers, they taste beautiful and heavenly with a cup of tea.

Chocolate Biscuits

Ingredients250g butter, softened 

330g caster sugar 

2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract 

450g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder 

1/2 cup Cocoa

Pre heat oven to 160c fan forced

Beat butter and sugar in an electric mixer until pale and fluffy, then add in vanilla extract and eggs one at a time.

Beat until well combine.

Slowly add in flour, baking powder and cocoa until mixture forms a ball

*if you find the mix is too wet add in a teaspoon of flour at a time until the dough forms a ball in the mixer.

If the mix is too dry add in a teaspoon of milk one at a time until you get the right consistency.

Shape the dough into a long roll shape, wrap it in plastic wrap and place it in the fridge to rest for 30 or so minutes.

Once the dough has rested - using a sharp thin blade slice dough into 1cm thick rounds. Lay the rounds onto a baking tray and bake for 25 minutes.

you should get around 30 biscuits from this recipe, depending on the size roll you made. My biscuits were around 2.5inches(6 cm)in circumferance.

Let the biscuits cool on a wire rack.

Once cool make the royal icing

Royal Icing

1 egg white beaten with a fork

1 teaspoon of lemon juice

1.5 cups pure icing sugar

use a fork to beat the egg whites with the lemon and then hand beat in the icing sugar, keep mixing until no lumps appear.

To decorate

Dip your biscuits in face down covering the top of the biscuit, let the excess icing drip off and then place right side up on a wire rack. Place desired flowers, petals and leaves on the wet icing. 

With some of the petals I used a pair of tweezers as I found my fingers were getting a little sticky and the petals kept getting stuck to me instead of the biscuits.

Voila - Very pretty looking biscuits that are very tasty.