These shimmery Angel Fish Biscuits are made from a buttery, almost shortbread like biscuit and decorated with colourful icing and sweets.
So it is week 2 on the Great British Bake Off and thats means biscuit week. Now I may have mentioned before on my blog, that biscuits are my baking nemesis. I cannot bake successful biscuits to save my life. In fact I would go as far to say, that I were ever to make it on the GBBO on TV, I would be gone by the end of week 2 because biscuits would be my worse bake! Here is the story behind my Angel Fish Biscuits.
Now the funny thing is, knowing this fact my Mum gave me this book for Christmas last year, in the hopes, I assume, that I could improve upon my biscuit baking skills and produce biscuits maybe not GBBO worthy, but half decent at least.
So for this weeks #GBBOBloggers2017 bake along, I decided to follow a recipe by the letter – none of my usual adding something because I didn’t have a particular ingredient, or changing it to suit my own preferences. No, for this week I was going to make a biscuit that worked!
Therefore, I used one in the book which seemed suitable for making a fun biscuit creation. I was going to have a go at the showstopper : a biscuit that you could play with (*having just watched the show tonight, I see that it was intact a board game! darn it, I should gave gone with making a draughts board – see below!). I searched You Tube and the internet for inspiration, and some ideas I considered were a fidget spinner cookie, a draughts board and a snow globe. However, I figured they were all a little too much like hard work. Therefore, I decided to make a snow globe rattle biscuit , where I would make a stained glass type biscuit in the shape of a snow globe, and place some sprinkles inside which would shake as you moved the biscuit around. I watched some tutorials on You Tube for heart shaped biscuits that had this feature, and figured it was not too hard.
Ha ha haaaaaaaa! Yeah right!
My so called snow globe rattle biscuits went so well that they ended up as Angel Fish biscuits instead. I wish I had taken some photos of my baking disasters to share with you now, but I didn’t have my phone on me at the time! Basically, the sweets that I used to make the stained glass effect stuck to the parchment paper, and when I tried to remove them the biscuits broke! Therefore, I looked at the biscuits I had managed to bake , and when I turned them on their side they looked a little like a fish shape. Hence, I decided there and then to make fish biscuits instead. Sadly, only 2 survived the decorating phase in one piece, which is why I only have 2 biscuits to show you! With the remaining biscuit dough, I just cut circles out and the boys had fun decorating them.
The good news is, the actual biscuit tastes delicious . The boys loved eating them and have asked if we can make more this weekend! Therefore, all was not lost. However, I meant what I say about biscuits being my baking nemesis. I just cannot make novelty biscuits to save my life!
So while my Angel Fish Biscuits may not be a biscuit you could play with, at least it was edible and made my boys smile and have fun eating them!
Recipe for Angel Fish Biscuits
- 225g unsalted butter
- 150g icing sugar (plus extra for dusting)
- 1 egg, slightly beaten
- 1 tsp vanilla essence or extract
- 350g plain flour
- pinch of salt
- *decoration*
- 1 mini meringue per biscuit
- 2 white chocolate jazzies per biscuit
- 1 small chocolate button per biscuit
- 2 tbsp icing sugar
- little cold water (enough to make a thick icing sugar paste)
- edible glitter/shimmer powder
- sprinkles
- Take a food processor, and in it place the butter and icing sugar and whiz until the mixture is creamy and soft
- add the egg and vanilla and beat again for a minute until smooth
- add the flour and salt and blitz again until the mixture leaves the sides and becomes a dough
- remove the dough, shape into a ball and place inside a plastic food bag or some cling film and chill in the fridge for at least 2 hours
- Once you are ready to use your dough, pre heat the oven to 180oC / 160oC (fan) and grease and line a large baking with parchment paper
- remove the dough from the fridge , and dust a clean work surface with icing sugar
- roll out the dough and then either use a fish shaped cookie cutter, or (and this is what I did) use a lid to a coffee storage jar to cut out round shoes. I then sued a heart shaped cookie cutter, and just cut out the top part to make the tail.
- Place onto the lined tray, and make sure the tail is attached to the bottom of the circle
- bake in the oven for about 10 minutes
- leave to cool and then carefully transfer to a wired rack
- once cold, make your icing and then cover each fish with some icing and then stick on a meringue and 2 jazzies as per my photos. Then add some shimmer and sprinkles and a chocolate button for an eye.
The #GBBOBloggers2017 Linky
You are welcome to bake along with me and some other long standing GBBOBloggers, the more the merrier in fact. You can read the rules here which are not strict really, but they just explains my twitter accounts and all that jazz! All I ask is that you please add my badge, a link to my blog and share the GBBO love by sharing or commenting on some of the bakes that link up.
The linky will open either Tuesday after the new episode, or Wednesday morning, depending on how organised I have been! I might not have time to cary out a full Star Baker round up as I have done in previous years. However, I will still devise a Star Baker Badge for each episode. Therefore, if this proves to be the case, and I don’t have time to write a separate post each week, then I will mention the Star Bakers in my new recipe post with the new linky. Of course, this might change …….. and therefore, we will see how it goes.
Thank you to everyone who linked up for week 1 - there were some delicious cakes linked up. Like seriously good! Thank you also to Apply To face who tweeted me her delicious looking apple cake. Here are last weeks entries (new linky is at the bottom of this post!).
It was (well it always is hard every week tbh!) really hard trying to pick a Star Baker, but I think I am going with Jacqueline’s Sunken Pear and Chocolate cake, which just looks so stunning and yet is relatively easy to make, once you read the method. I love how every slice reveals a piece of pear.
Now, on your marks, get set and baaaaaaaaake!!!!! xx
Choose between:
Signature Bake – sandwich biscuits
Technical bake – fortune cookies
Showstopper – a Board Game
hosted by Angela
Mandy Mazliah
Well I think your angel fish cookies look lovely and certainly better than some of the soggy fortune cookies! I agree about Jacqueline’s chocolate pear cake – it looks perfect. x
Jenny Paulin
Thank you Mandy, that is so lovely of your to say x
cakesnbakes2014
Those fish biscuits are really cute Jenny. And I’m going to be stealing Jacqueline’s recipe for the pear cake, it truely is stunning.
Rebecca Beesley (The Beesley Buzz)
oh those fish are adorable despite the baking disasters you may have had to get there – I’m glad you ended up with such cute fish! After watching the trailer last week, I knew I wanted to attempt a board game – albeit a simple one! So I baked my ‘base’ a few days ago and am hoping it is still edible after leaving it so long to make the rest tomorrow hopefully.
Jenny Paulin
thank you Rebecca. and for making a biscuit bard game x
Recipes Made Easy
Agree with the comments so far the fish look fab. You could have easily posted this as your first biscuit success and we would have been none the wiser.
Thank you so much for awarding me Star Baker I feel I might have peaked too soon. Have to say I was a little surprised as I think Angela’s Chocolate Box cake was fabulous and the anti gravity cake fun. But I guess it was the fact that that the pear cake was in fact a simple cake that looks great which makes it a winner for anyone who makes it.
I’ve made fortune cookies before and that was enough. Im too lazy to dot he show stopper so it sandwich biscuits for me this week. Looking forward to seeing everyone bakes
Jenny Paulin
thank you so much for your lovely kind comment. Angela almost got star baker I must admit, BUT your cake was simple and yet magnificent and looked stunning. x
Cat
Love that I’m not the only one who sometimes has less than perfect days baking! Your angel fish biscuits look really lovely and it sounds like your boys really loved them which is also a big plus! x
Jenny Paulin
ha ha well you can only learn from your baking mistakes! x
joskitchenlarder
I think everybody said it already, these are the cutest little angel fish biscuits ever 🙂 And anyways hats off to you for going through all the research and giving the snow globe rattle biscuits a go! They sound amazing but also a hard work lol. Fish biscuits any day for me instead. 🙂 x Ps. Brilliant choice of star baker too. Love Jacqui’s cake!
Jenny Paulin
Thank you Jo. Yes I did a lot of research but alas to no avail lol!still the fish biscuits were well received by the boys so not all lost x
Angela / Only Crumbs Remain
I couldn’t agree with everybody more jenny, your angel fish cookies are super cute! Such a happy accident!
Angela x
Angela / Only Crumbs Remain
Thankyou too for joining in with #BakingCrumbs again this month Jenny 🙂 xx
Jenny Paulin
you are welcome, thank you for hosting x
Jenny Paulin
awww thank you Angela 🙂 x
RaisieBay
Your biscuits are really cute, in the end it’s all in the tasting and it sounds like they were enjoyed!
I’ve actually managed to link up this week, but I didn’t do the baking, I left that to the kids 🙂
Jenny Paulin
Thank you , and you are right it is the taste that counts at the end of the day. thank you for managing to link up x
knattster
So cute, and I am sure they were very tasty. I also love hearing stories about how baking goes wrong – it makes me feel better about my own mistakes!!!
Jenny Paulin
Thank you , they did taste nice (thankfully!). ha ha well I am called mummy mishaps for a reason 😉 x
shelllouise
I love the fish biscuits, they’re very cute 🙂 I don’t seem to have much luck with biscuits either.
Jenny Paulin
Thank you Shell, and I am glad it is notion just me who fails at biscuit making! x
Glutarama
Brilliant linky idea Angela, your wee fishy biscuits are soooo cute…always had an issue with eating cute food though, guess I’d have to just close my eyes hahaha xx
Glutarama
Clearly need to be asleep rather than commenting and drooling over biscuits…Angel Biscuits by you Jenny….off to bed now zzzz
Jenny Paulin
hope you got some sleep eventually 😉 x
Jenny Paulin
ha ha yes ~Jenny not Angela! I am the same, I stay up too late and then make typos on comments myself ! Thank you for popping over and feel free to join in x
Carolin
How cute are they? They’d be perfect for a Mermaid party. I know Amy would love them. I love how colourful and sparkly they are x
Kat (The Baking Explorer)
I love that you made something pretty out of a baking disaster! Thanks for linking up to #TreatPetite
Baking Crumbs - October 2017 - Only Crumbs Remain
[…] absolutely love the whimsical nature of Jenny’s Angel Fish Biscuit. They’re so much fun, and would be perfect for a child’s party. Jenny, of […]