Ready in as little as 20 minutes, baking enthusiasts can whip up Mary Berry’s Easter biscuits in no time. Making the dough from scratch can give such a sense of accomplishment, so why not give it a go?
Mary instructed: “Use half of the dough to make traditional fruited Easter biscuits, and half to make iced Easter biscuits in funky shapes.”
Serving 12 biscuit pieces, they’re the perfect accompaniment to a lovely mug of tea or coffee. Here’s how to make Easter biscuits the Mary Berry way with her easy-to-follow recipe.
Easter biscuits recipe
Ingredients
For the dough:
200g softened butter
150g caster sugar
Two large free-range egg yolk
400g plain flour, plus extra for flouring
One level tsp mixed spice
One level tsp ground cinnamon
Two to four tbsp of milk
For the traditional currant biscuits
100g currants
Caster sugar, for sprinkling
For the iced biscuits
One to two tsp lemon juice
250g icing sugar
Two tbsp cold water
Different coloured food colouring
Method
Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas four. Lightly grease two baking trays lined with baking parchment.
Beat the butter and sugar into a bowl until it is light and fluffy. Beat in the egg yolk.
Sieve in the flour and spices and add some milk. Bring together, using your hands, to make a soft dough. Halve the mixture and set half to one side.
For the fruity biscuits
Add the currants to the one half of the dough and knead it lightly on a floured work surface.
Roll out to a thickness of about 5mm. Cut into rounds using a circular cutter. Place on the prepared baking trays. Sprinkle with caster sugar.
Bake in the preheated oven for 15 minutes. Sprinkle with caster sugar and lift onto a wire rack to cool. Store in an airtight container.
For the iced biscuits
Knead the remaining dough mixture lightly on a floured work surface. Roll out to a thickness of 5mm.
Cut out Easter biscuits using an assortment of shaped cutters, such as bunnies, Easter eggs, chicks, spring flowers.
Place the biscuit shapes on the prepared baking trays and bake in the preheated oven for 10 to 15 minutes. Remove from the oven and lift on to a wire rack to cool.
To make the icing
Pass one teaspoon of lemon juice through a fine sieve, to remove any pips or bits.
Mix the icing sugar with the lemon juice, and then add two tablespoons of water, adding it little by little until you have a relatively stiff but smooth icing.
Divide the icing into separate bowls and mix in food colourings of your choice into the separate bowls of icing.
Spoon a little icing into a piping bag and pipe your decorations onto the biscuits.
