Ah biscuit week. The one where I always think ‘oh I can do that’ and then fail miserably. Last year we had to make towers of biscuits and this year the challenge once again involved precarious balancing and a certain amount of artistic talent – something I don’t have much of.

First up I decided I would ignore the 3D challenge and just try out a new recipe. I have had the Hummingbird Bakery Home Sweet Home recipe book for months but have never dared attempt any of the beautiful recipes inside – this was the perfect excuse.

I picked out the reasonably simple but tasty looking Linzer Cookies and set to mixing and making. It made a very nice smooth dough which was easy to cut after chilling in the fridge however I should have kept a closer watch on them in the oven as instead of being pale and beautiful the majority of mine looked more like they should have been chocolate flavoured. ‘Over-Baked’ would have been understating it a bit – I took photos of the best ones to save face 😉

I could have left it at that but I just wasn’t happy with them so I decided the next day to have another go but this time just use a simple vanilla sugar cookie recipe and try to construct a 3D scene.

I happen to be the proud owner of the Lakeland range of Doctor Who cookie cutters and decided I would try to make a scene of Daleks trying to surround the TARDIS (in honour of the new series starting next week) – I have no idea why I thought this would be a good idea after my failure at getting biscuits to stand up last year…

I did commit the cardinal sin and used ready to roll icing for decorating my biscuits but the artwork was all hand drawn on with an edible ink marker pen. This took aaaaages but was quite good fun.

Once the ink was dry I mixed up some thick icing with water and icing sugar (in hindsight I should have added some egg too, but never mind) and began trying to get my three Daleks to stand up around my TARDIS.

The TARDIS was a total pain and had to be propped up with a rolling pin and various other kitchen implements to prevent a total collapse – it still looked a bit drunk in the end though. (Or, as my Dad said, ‘it’s just dizzy from whizzing through time and space.’)

The Daleks worked quite well though and once the icing had set I was able to remove all the props and nothing fell down!

Not the neatest 3D scene ever but I was pleased with it and it’s very tasty! There isn’t much left already!!

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