Easter is a very special time of the year for those who celebrate, however even if one does not celebrate the religious occasion, it has well become a commercial celebration for all, with grocery store shelves packed with chocolate eggs, bunnies and more!

This Easter, instead of giving the standard chocolates, why not give a traditional stack of wrapped homemade biscuits with royal icing that are simple to make and great tasting. Plus, you can make a large batch to go a long way.

Ingredients:

250g butter

200g castor sugar

5ml vanilla essence

2 large eggs (beaten)

480g cake flour (sifted)

10ml baking powder

5ml salt

25ml water

Icing

375ml icing sugar

1 large egg white

4 drops lemon juice

Food Colouring (your choice)

Icing decorations (your choice)

Method:

Heat the oven to 180ºC

Cream the butter and sugar until fluffy and light in colour.

Add the vanilla essence and eggs. Mix well.

Sift all the dry ingredients together and add to the creamed mixture and mix thoroughly. Add water if necessary.

With a rolling pin, roll out the batter to a thickness of 3mm and then using cookie cutters, cut out into your preferred shapes.

Place each biscuit onto a greased baking tray and bake for 8 – 10 minutes. Once baked, cool on a wire rack before icing.

For the icing: sift the icing sugar, then beat the egg white and add it to the icing sugar. Mix until a smooth semi-thick piping consistency forms. Add the lemon juice.

Spoon some white icing into a piping bag or small plastic bag and push to one corner to make a piping bag. Snip off the corner and ice the biscuits. If you would like colour, add food colouring to the remaining icing mixture and add to a different piping bag.

Decorations such as silver chocolate balls or chocolate chips etc can also be used.

Once all the icing has set, you can stack a few of the biscuits on top of one another and tie them together with ribbon, or perhaps add them into a mason jar and finish off with ribbon and a tag that states “You’re a biscuit! Happy Easter!”

Recipe provided by The View Boutique Hotel & Spa kitchen team at Giorgio’s restaurant.