Christmas Baking

Every Friday evening my family get together at my Gran's house for dinner and a catch up, which I'll quite often go to. This week I decided to pop along, and bake some festive treats for us to enjoy as dessert.


It had to be something quick and simple to make, as the only time I had was during Oliver's afternoon nap, so I found the really easy chocolate dipped shortbread recipe from Tanya's Christmas book. As well as being the simple recipe I needed, they were also really affordable, as you only need four ingredients.

First off, you mix 175g unsalted butter and 75g caster sugar until they form a paste. Then add 250g plain flour and mix until you have a crumbly dough.

Dust your work surface with flour, then press the mixture together, and roll out to be approximately 1cm thick. Cut out your biscuit shapes, using whatever festive cutters you have, and arrange them on a baking tray lined with baking paper. The recipe in the book said the mixture makes about 18 biscuits, I think I managed to get about half a dozen more, but it all depends on the size of your cutters.

Place the tray in the fridge for 20 minutes to allow the biscuits to chill. Preheat the oven to 190 degrees/gas mark 5.

Once the biscuits have chilled, pop them in the oven for 15-20 minutes, until they are pale golden on top, then transfer them to a wire rack to cool.

While the biscuits are cooling, melt 200g milk chocolate in a heatproof bowl over a pan of simmering water. Once the chocolate is melted & biscuits cool, dip them biscuits into the chocolate and place them back on the wire rack for the chocolate to set. I actually put my biscuits back in the fridge at this point to speed up the setting process.

And that's it, your biscuits are ready to enjoy, and they seemed to go down well with my family!