Gifts and Pressies: Mam and Dad's 40th Anniversary bickies

One more throwback bake before I get back into the kitchen properly! I am really keen to try out so many of the beautiful tarts, cakes and pastries I saw (and sampled) while on holidays in France last month but haven't been quite organised enough to get going on them since coming home on Monday. So, for today I'll have to settle for telling you about these pretty Anniversary bickies I made last year for my parents 40th wedding anniversary.

As most of you who read this will know, my mammy and I work together in our family ballet school which also celebrated it's 40th anniversary last year. It's the school I grew up in, a second home for myself and some of my best friends with my mammy at the top of the class, nurturing our love of ballet and always encouraging us to work hard and have fun and to reach the potential she could see in all of us.

So why do I tell you all this? Not just to be soppy! I wanted to make something that wasn't just the traditional bride and groom but a little bit of mam and dad in baked goods form. For dad I went with the tux from all our New Years Eve parties at home that were strictly black tie events! (so fancy!!) and for my mammy, the ballerina! Actually, I had intended on doing all four of the brides dresses with feather shapes like the four cygnets in Swan Lake but unfortunately I underestimated the number of feathers I'd have to make - I didn't have a stencil, I was cutting and shaping them by hand. So, in the end I had to settle for four different tutus. Next time, I'll be more organised...I say that every time!

For the sake of complete honesty, I didn't make the icing myself. I didn't think I 'd manage to get the colours strong enough so I bought the ready made stuff in Decobake in town and cut out the shapes. I used honey brushed on the biscuits to stick the icing to it.

The biscuits:

I found these biscuits in The Great British Bake off : How To Turn Everyday Bakes into Showstoppers cookbook and the recipe is called Time for Tea, if you're looking for it. These biscuits are so gorgeous, very easy to make and includes ground almonds, ground cinnamon, orange juice and zest along with the main ingredients - unsalted butter, caster sugar, an egg, plain flour, pinch of salt and baking powder.

To make them, start by beating together the butter, sugar and orange zest in a large bowl. Beat in the egg yolk followed by the almonds. Next sift in the flour, salt, baking powder and cinnamon and add the orange juice. Work together with a spoon and then your hands to make a "fairly firm dough", as it says in the recipe. I didn't want to work it too much so it would still be crumbly when you bite into it (after baking of course...not before, that would be weird).

Wrap it up in clingfilm and pop in the fridge for 30 mins, then roll the dough out to "the thickness of a pound coin" (a euro would probably also be ok) and cut into shapes. For the Tux bickies I used a heart shape with squiggly sides and for the dresses I drew out a stencil and cut around it. Arrange the shapes, slightly apart, on a baking sheet and cool again in the fridge for 15 minutes before popping into a preheated oven (180 degrees celsius) for 10-12 mins. I had to keep a good eye on them because my oven is so rubbish and tends to burn stuff really quickly.

The orange juice/zest and cinnamon gave these biscuits a lovely flavour and they were quite light and crumbly under all that icing!

The biscuits need to cool completely before icing, so its best to do them the day before if you can. I'm still working on piping my own icing. My shaky hands don't like to make things look pretty when using a piping bag. Some day!