biscuits – Crunchy on the outside

Squashed Fly Biscuits

Don’t worry dipterists, these delicious biscuits don’t actually have flies inside them! Also known as Garibaldi biscuits, the ‘flies’ are actually currants. Why not have a go at making them?

You will need:

Baking tray – lightly greased or with baking paper
Mixing bowl
Rolling pin
Wooden spoon
Teaspoon
Knife
Plate
A work surface sprinkled with flour
A wire rack to cool the biscuits
Oven pre-heated to 200^oC (180^oC if it’s a fan oven) / Gas mark 6
Oven gloves
A grown-up assistant

Ingredients:

225g plain flour, plus a little extra for dusting
100g currants
75g lightly salted butter
50g caster sugar
5 tablespoons of milk
1/2 teaspoon of ground cinnamon, mixed with 3 tablespoons of sugar
3 drops of vanilla extract
Beaten egg or milk to glaze

How to make the biscuits:

1 Wash your hands. Make sure your assistant washes theirs too.

2 In the mixing bowl, rub the butter into the flour using your fingertips. Keep going until the mixture looks like breadcrumbs.

3 Add the sugar and milk.

4 Mix the ingredients together in a bowl until it forms a smooth dough.

4 Cover the bowl with a plate and put in the fridge for 30 minutes to cool.

5 While you are waiting, lightly grease the baking tray, or lay some baking paper on it, and lightly sprinkle flour on your work surface.

6 Pre-heat the oven to 200^oC (180^oC if it’s a fan oven) / Gas mark 6

7 Using the rolling pin, roll out the dough on the floured work surface until it is spread out into a 30cm square.

8 Cut the square of dough in half with a knife.

9 Scatter one half with the cinnamon & sugar mix and the currants. Save some of the cinnamon/sugar mix for the topping.

10 Put the other half on top, making a sandwich with the currants in the middle.

11 Roll the dough again until it’s about 5mm thick. You should see the currants showing through.

12 Carefully lift the dough onto the prepared baking tray. Ask your assistant to help you.

13 Trim the edges and use the knife to score the dough into 8cm x 4cm rectangles. Be careful not to cut right through.

14 Brush with egg or milk, then scatter the remaining cinnamon/sugar mix on top.

15 Bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes. Ask your assistant to help, taking them out when they are golden.

16 Cool the biscuits on the wire rack and then break them into individual biscuits.

If you want to make the biscuits vegan, replace the butter with vegan block and the dairy milk with plant milk. Brush the biscuits with plant milk instead of egg wash.

We hope you enjoy eating and sharing your biscuits! If you liked this recipe, why not have a go at making our iced beetle biscuits?

This is the last post from Crunchy on the Outside because the HOPE for the future project has come to an end. We have really enjoyed sharing the amazing world of insects with you. The blog will stay online for the time being and you can check out all that’s happening at the Museum on our Main Website.

Beetle biscuits

Enjoy biscuits? Like beetles? Then you’ll love our iced beetle biscuits! We have designed ours to look like ladybirds, but you can decorate yours in any way you like. If you haven’t got time to bake the biscuits you could buy some and decorate them.

You will need:

Round biscuit cutter

Baking tray – lightly greased or with baking paper

Mixing bowl

Rolling pin

Wooden spoon

teaspoon

A work surface sprinkled with flour

A wire rack to cool the biscuits

Oven pre-heated to 190^oC (170^oC if its a fan oven)

Oven gloves

A grown-up assistant

Ingredients:

100g butter – take it out of the fridge to soften it

225g self-raising flour

80g caster sugar

1 large egg, beaten

1 tablespoon of milk

3 drops of vanilla extract

To make the icing:

100g icing sugar

1 tablespoon of lemon juice (use water if you haven’t got juice)

Food colouring – colours of your choice

How to make the biscuits:

Wash your hands. Make sure your assistant washes theirs too.

Lightly grease the baking tray.

In the mixing bowl, rub the butter into the flour using your fingertips. Keep going until the mixture looks like breadcrumbs.

Add the sugar, beaten egg, milk and vanilla extract.

Mix all the ingredients together in a bowl. You can use the spoon to start but as the dough forms you will probably find it easier to use your hands to shape it into a ball.

Using the rolling pin, roll out the dough on the floured work surface until it is spread out in a thin layer.

Cut out biscuit shapes from the dough and put them on the baking tray.

Bake in the oven for 10-15 minutes. Ask your assistant to take them out when they are golden brown.

Cool the biscuits on the wire rack. watch that your assistant doesn’t try to snaffle the warm biscuits!

How to make the icing:

While the biscuits are cooling, mix the icing ingredients. The icing needs to be liquid but not so runny that it runs off the biscuit when you put it on. If it’s too runny, add a bit more icing sugar. If its too stiff, add a drop of water. Divide your icing between bowls, one for each colour you are using. For the biscuits in the picture, we used red and violet and also kept some white icing. Add a drop of food colour to each bowl and mix it in. When the biscuits are cool, use the teaspoon to spoon a little icing onto each biscuit, then smooth it on with the back of the spoon. You can use a cocktail stick to spread out small amounts of icing.

Top tip: if you have a piping bag, you can stop the colours mixing into each other, pipe the outline of the parts of your beetle, let that icing dry, then fill in with more liquid icing.

We hope you enjoy your biscuits! Why not send us a picture of your design for our Photo Gallery?