Simple Firework Night Biscuits (Cooking With Kids)

If you've been invited to a firework night party or just want something to dip in your hot chocolate to warm up after an evening outside, these simple Firework Night Biscuits are perfect, and even better, the children can make them - with a little help from you.

Baking Mad kindly sent me a box of ingredients, and I've used their Easter Biscuit Recipe today because it gives the perfect base for icing.

Ingredients
90g butter, unsalted, softened
100g sugar
1 egg, free range
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
200g plain white flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
Pinch of salt

Baking Mad suggest you use Golden Caster Sugar. I'm particularly fond of Billington's Sugars and have used Light Muscovado Sugar for my main recipe,  and also made some with Dark Muscovado Sugar, and some with Golden Caster Sugar. The Golden Caster Sugar will give you a slightly more toffee taste to your biscuits whereas the Muscovado gives a heavier and more fudgey taste and is brilliant for Winter baking with spices and dried fruit. 

Method

Sieve the flour, baking powder and salt into a bowl and set aside.  In a large bowl cream the butter and sugar until pale.  Beat in the egg and vanilla extract - we've used Nielsen-Massey vanilla etract.  Add the flour to the butter mix and mix until the dough is formed.

Wrap the cookie dough in cling film and chill for at least one hour, so that it becomes suitable for rolling. If you choose not to wait and roll, and just plonk your mixture on the baking tray you'll end up with a cakey biscuit like these...

Preheat the oven to 170°C (150°C fan, gas mark 3).  Roll the dough out on a lightly floured surface to about 0.5cm.  Cut out the cookies and transfer to baking sheets.  Roll up the trimmings and repeat stages above to make more cookies.

Bake for around 10 minutes - the cookies will be soft, so let them cool for a couple of minutes before moving them gently onto a wire rack. They should be set enough to move, but not cool enough that they've welded themselves to the baking paper.

Leave to cool completely.

Now the fun bit!

We all made 'firework' pictures at school by flicking paint onto paper - these can be pretty much the same, or you can use your artistic talent to actually 'draw' something.

Ingredients

Icing sugar
Food colouring
Water 

Method

Make tiny quantities of coloured icing - red, orange, yellow and white work best for fiery firework colours. It needs to be runny, but not watery, so only add drops of water to your mix.

Cover your table, valuables, children etc. Arrange your cookies for best coverage - a wire cooling rack works great if you have one. I covered some biscuits with a coating of purple icing in advance - to give that 'night time sky' effect. If you have time to spend then pipe royal icing around the edges, and fill it in. Clearly I didn't have that much time, and they're for the children to do really.

Let the children loose with the icing, teaspoons, a pastry brush or unused (brand new) toothbrushes, or anything else that is food safe, clean and seems to work, and 'flick' the icing or let it drizzle from your spoon while you keep moving it around. 

Add glitter and stars if you wish...

Enjoy! Have a fun, safe and uneventful bonfire night.