Basic Biscuit Dough + add ins
Basic Biscuit Dough is a great base for a whole range of biscuits with your chosen add-ins. Here I share the basic recipe and give some flavour suggestions to start you off.
Ingredients
- 225 g self raising flour
- 1 pinch salt
- 150 g butter
- 100 g caster sugar
- 1 egg beaten
Optional Add-Ins (choose 1 or a mixture which add up to 50g)
- 50 g currants, sultanas or raisins chopped if large
- 50 g glace cherries chopped
- 50 g desiccated coconut
- 50 g nuts e.g. walnuts, hazelnuts, pecans finely chopped
- 50 g ground almonds
- 50 g seeds e.g. sesame, poppy, chia
- 50 g chocolate finely chopped
Optional flavourings (as many as you like)
- 3 tsp lemon, orange or lime zest finely grated
- 2-3 tsp spices e.g. cinnamon, ginger, mixed spice
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 tsp almond extract
Sugar topping (optional)
- 1 egg white beaten
- caster sugar
Instructions
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Sift the flour and salt into a bowl.
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Rub in the butter until the mixture resembles very fine breadcrumbs.
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Stir in the sugar.
Note: if using any of the optional add-ins and flavourings, add them with the sugar now.
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Add just enough of the beaten egg to make a stiff dough: you may only need to use around half of the egg.
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Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and lightly knead until it's smooth.
Wrap in cling film or foil and put in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.
In the meantime, preheat the oven to 180C/160C fan/Gas 4.
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Butter some baking trays or line them with baking parchment: the mixture makes approximately 40 biscuits so you may need to cook them in batches.
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Divide the dough in half, rewrap one half and put it back in the fridge.
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Flour your worksurface and rolling pin, then roll out the remaining half of dough thinly.
Stamp out biscuits using a 6-7 cm cutter and put them on the baking trays.
Prick the biscuits all over with a fork.
Optional Sugar Topping
Once you've pricked the biscuits, brush lightly with beaten egg then sprinkle with sugar before proceeding with the next step.
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Put the trays towards the middle of the oven & cook until cooked (approx 12 min). Watch them carefully as they can quickly burn.
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Leave the trays to cool for a few minutes then carefully transfer the biscuits to a wire rack.
When completely cold, store the biscuits in an airtight container.
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Repeat with the rest of the biscuit dough.
Recipe Notes
Buttercream Layered Chocolate Biscuits
To make a really special biscuity treat, take three of the baked and cooled biscuits and layer them together with buttercream. Melt some white, milk or dark chocolate then dip the whole lot in to completely cover. Leave to set on greaseproof paper.