Ingredients
For the biscuits:
175 g plain flour
100 g granulated sugar
100 g unsalted butter
1 egg yolk
3 tsp squeezed orange juice
zest from 1 large orange
For the icing:
60 g icing sugar
6 tsp squeezed orange juice
Directions
Pre heat oven to 170 degrees C and line 2 baking trays. I recently purchased a re-usable non-stick baking sheet from Clas ohlson and I must say it is fabulous. I made one batch on foil as I only have one non-stick baking sheet and when I turned the biscuits over the ones done on the sheet were a much nicer even colour.
Cream together the butter and sugar in a medium mixing bowl until light and fluffy then grate the orange zest straight into the bowl and add the egg yolk.
Juice 1/2 of the large orange and add 3 tsp to the mix, make sure you save the rest of this juice for later! Mix well then gradually add the flour until it combines to make a squidgy ball of dough - I used all 175 g plain flour.
Roll the dough out until it is 1/8 of an inch thick.
Take a butterfly cutter of any size - I used a mixture of sizes,
and cut out the butterflies. I got about 9 medium (3" widest part), 2 big (4") and 15 small (2 - 1/4"). Place the butterflies on your pre lined baking tray, the biggest butterfly in the middle radiating out in descending size order.
Bake for approximately 12 minutes but be sure to check them after minutes as oven temperatures vary - I am almost positive mine is lying to me I really should buy an oven thermometer to confirm my suspicions and rectify the situation! I find the perfect biscuit is taken out the oven when it is just on the cusp of being done because they crisp up on cooling.
Leave the biscuits to cool completely before icing. To make the icing combine 60 g of icing sugar with 6 tsp squeezed orange juice - see this is what you were saving the juice you squeezed before for! If you want to use two distinctly different colours (or more!) make up two 30 g batches (or three 20 g batches e.t.c.). If you want to use different shades of one colour like I have (I used Sugarflair Spectral Concentrated Paste Colour in Tangerine / Apricot) then just make one batch and start with the lightest colour adding an extra drop when you are ready for the next colour! This method saves on the washing up - I must mention here that Hannah did my washing up (so I could have used ALL the colours!) she is an angel. The picture below shows the desired consistency the best I know how to illustrate with a digital camera I tried I'm sorry! I have also included pictures of the two lightest colours I used (I forgot to photograph the last one I have to admit) and a mid swirl photo of the first drop of colouring as I thought it looked really groovy - this colour is a new addition to my kitchen look at how intense a colour just ONE drop produces!!
Decorate your butterflies in whatever way takes your fancy, I changed my mind half way through and created a multitude of designs! I initially tried to just cover the whole butterfly and produce lots of different shades of block colour critters but then I (by chance, I dropped my icing in a place that actually looked pretty cool) discovered I really liked covering the centre of the wings and the body only so I added a darker colour on top of the icing of the butterflies I had originally block-coloured. You can see more closely how I decorated my Orange Butterfly Iced Biscuits in the photo below.
Let the icing set before you stack them on top of each other in a tin, let sticky little fingers (or grown-up fingers) all over them or whatever you can do to knock the delicate flutter-bys to avoid a blurred smudgy mess! Obviously if your kids are making these the blurred fingerprints make for a masterpiece! Enjoy! :D
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