When I heard that Zoella was releasing a new book all about celebrations and hosting throughout the seasons I just knew I had to buy it, as we all know Zoe always goes above and beyond for any celebration so I knew the book would be pretty epic! The book gives us all of Zoe's hints, tips, recipes, do's, donts about any occasion/season and obviously being the keen baker than I am the recipe pages called out to me first, I just had to get into the kitchen and whip up a batch of Zoe's Chocolate Skeleton Biscuits. The biscuits where really easy to make and if you don't have the book yourself but would like to make these Halloween inspired biscuits just in time for that spooky day then fear not because I've got you covered! FYI - I halved the recipe because I only wanted a small batch of the biccies but the full recipe is below!
*250g butter, softened
*140 icing sugar
*1 egg yolk
*2 tsp vanilla extract
*300g plain flour
*50g cocoa powder
*1 tube of white writing icing (I actually made a batch of my own with icing sugar and water)
How To
* In a bowl, beat the butter, icing sugar, vanilla and egg yolk until creamy and well combined then sift in the cocoa powder and the flour and mix again. I did find the mixture was quite dry and crumbly for a while but stick with it because it does come together after a while and then you can bring the dough together into a ball.
* Once your mixture is formed into a ball wrap it up in some cling film and pop it into the fridge for around 30 minutes to chill. Whilst the dough is chilling it's the perfect time to get a couple of baking trays at the ready and pre heat the oven to 190/170 fan/gas mark 5.
*After 30 minutes roll out the dough between two pieces of greaseproof paper, I never usually do this when making biscuits, I usually just roll on my floured kitchen worktops but I followed the books steps and it actually made it extremely easy to roll without any dough sticking to the rolling pin or tearing.
*Once the dough is rolled out use cookie cutters to cut out your little skeleton people, I just used a gingerbread man cookie cutter for mine! Then bake for around 10 minutes!
* When your biscuits are completely cool use some white writing icing to create the bones and skeletons on the biscuits, I used a batch of my own icing I made with icing sugar and water but I did find this was a little runny and not very precise so I would recommend getting the thicker writing icing! I finished mine off with two little black ball sprinkles for the eyes and voila!
I found these biscuits so easy to make and they where so yummy and super chocolaty! Mine aren't decorated half as good as Zoe's are in the book but their rustic and I'm happy with rustic ha ha!
Have you bought Cordially Invited beaut's? Have you made or baked anything from the book yet? I'd love to know!
