Red Spiral Biscuits

Since making My Best Friend’s Wedding Cake I have litres of red food colouring leftover and am trying to find ways to use it.  After a friend linked to this spiral biscuit recipe on Pinterest, I searched to find an actual recipe and came across one on another blog for some red spiral biscuits.

Once I spied the beautiful pictures on the SprinkleBakes blog entry, and now subsequently her book, I knew I couldn’t wait to try them.  And because I couldn’t wait to try them I didn’t have the right sprinkles for the outside, however it did have a similar effect in the end.

For those of you playing at home, the recipe can be found on Sprinkle Bakes blog here.

First the dough needs to be made and this was done in the food processor.  Even though I have seen it done a million times, I haven’t really made a lot of biscuits or pastry in the food processor.  I am going to do this a bit more as it was quite easy and the biscuits were delicious and delicate.

Once the dough was made, half of it was tinted red and strawberry essence was added, plus a little extra flour to soak up the additional liquid.

Each portion of dough was then rolled out to 2-3mm thick (ideally, however I think mine ended up being more like 5mm) and although they should have been rectangular, I ended up with a couple of odd shapes.  After a couple of hours in the fridge, I found the best orientation for my dough to join and then brushed a little water and pressed the sheets together lightly with the rolling-pin.

I then neatened one of the long edges to give me a straight line to start rolling the dough.  It was still a little firm from being in the fridge, but if any cracks formed as it was rolled I smoothed these over along the way.

Once rolled, I cut off the ends where the dough was a little uneven due to the odd shape in the first place, and set these aside.

The “good” log of dough was rolled in the sprinkles that had been put on a plate.  As I only had the flat sprinkles, I had to push them a lot harder to ensure they were stuck to the outside of the dough so they wouldn’t fall off as it was cut and baked.

The log was then cut into slices about 5mm thick and put on a baking tray.  Some of the biscuits had small holes in the centre which I think was a combination of the odd-shaped dough and not being rolled tight enough.

The biscuits were then baked at 160°C for about 15 minutes until they were slightly golden.

Once cooled, they were popped in a container and taken to work the next day for my colleagues who are often guinea pigs for my cooking escapades (not that they complain too much).