With cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and cardamom, these spiced biscuits tick all the Christmas flavour boxes. Although, Kim-Joy didn’t initially intend on making sugar wings for these robins – that came about as a lucky accident when she was playing around with the recipe.
“They’re filled in the middle with hard crack sugar caramel that’s coloured orange,” she explains. “After a while that started setting – then we twisted it and did some sugar work to make some little wings for the robin, so it kind of worked out well.”
Robin cookies
Equipment
- Stand mixer or hand-held electric whisk
- Baking sheets
- Baking tray
- Bird cookie cutters
- Sugar thermometer
- Piping bags
Ingredients
Biscuit
- 250 g salted butter
- 250 g brown cassonade sugar, or light brown muscovado
- 3/4 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
- 1/8 tsp white pepper
- 1/8 tsp ground cloves
- 1/8 tsp ground cardamom
- 1 pinch ground anise
- 1/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda
- 1/2 beaten egg
- 350 g plain flour plus extra for dusting
- 2 lemons or oranges, finely zested add to taste
Sugar center
- 225 g caster or granulated sugar
- 150 g liquid glucose
- 50 ml water
- orange gel food dye
Royal icing
- 40 g egg white
- 225 g icing sugar
- orange gel food dye
- black gel food dye
Method
For the cookies
- Line a baking sheet that you can fit in the fridge with baking paper and set aside.
- Cream the butter and sugar with a mixer until the mixture is soft, fluffy and paler in colour. Scrape the sides and base of the bowl occasionally.
- Add all the spices, bicarbonate of soda and egg. Mix until completely combined.
- Add all the flour. Use your hands to rub the butter and sugar mixture into the flour, then press into a ball of dough.
- Roll out the dough on a lightly floured work surface, then use cutters to stamp out circles, about 7.5cm in diameter. Transfer to the prepared baking sheet. On half the cookies, stamp out a smaller circle, about 4cm from the lower third area (see photo for guidance).
- Bake for about 15 minutes, or until the edges are just starting to colour. Transfer to a wire rack and leave to cool.
For the sugar centre
- When the cookies are cool, make the sugar glass for the centre. Add the caster sugar, liquid glucose and water to a small saucepan and stir to combine. Add a drop of orange gel food dye to colour. Heat over a high heat, but don’t stir until the mixture reaches 150°C.
- Remove the pan from the heat and use a large spoon to spoon the sugar syrup into the centre of the cookies. Immediately scatter over sprinkles.
- Leave the sugar syrup for 20 minutes, or until completely hardened, then peel the filled cookies off the baking paper.
For the royal icing
- Combine the egg white and icing sugar with a mixture until you get a smooth consistency. Add tiny amounts of extra egg white and/or icing sugar to get the right consistency if needed.
- Spoon one-third of the mixture into a piping bag, then divide the remaining icing between two bowls. Stir black food dye into one bowl and orange food dye into the other to colour.
- Transfer each coloured icing to a piping bag, snipping a small section off the end. Use to pipe a robin design (refer to the photo for guidance).
Additional steps
- The wings are an optional extra decoration - you can make them by letting the leftover sugar syrup cool, then pulling it into a long wide ribbon using your hands and cutting it into pieces with scissors. Be careful not to do this when the sugar is too hot! It needs to be cooled to the point where it can be stretched.
Nutrition
Christmas With Kim-Joy: A Festive Collection Of Edible Cuteness by Kim-Joy is published by Quadrille. Photography by Ellis Parrinder.
- Amazon Kindle Edition
- Kim-Joy (Author)
- English (Publication Language)
Last update on 2024-05-10 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API
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