GBBO Week 2: Biscuit Week - Tic-tac-toe biscuit boardgame

When I saw the trailer for this week's GBBO I knew I wanted to attempt the biscuit boardgame showstopper - albeit at a smaller scale than the GBBO constestants. And mainly because I didn't think I would have a hope of attempting the technical bake - those fortune cookies looked such a challenge to make!

Miss T has a really cute little wooden tic-tac-toe game that she was given at the hospital after one of her many blood tests to monitor the effect of the methotrexate on her liver. The methotrexate has worked wonders for her Juvenile Arthritis but one of the side effects can be serious liver problems so it is vital to have regular blood tests to keep an eye on it.

Anyway, it was this little game that came to mind to make from biscuits. I think if it was presented on bake off, it would be a bit too simplistic for a showstopper but it was fun to make and the kids enjoyed eating it.

The base is made from shortbread using my favourite Mary Berry shortbread recipe  - The copy of the recipe I have noted down is much larger quantities than this one I found on the internet, so I reduced the quantities from the original recipe that I have so used 88g butter and flour and 44g semolina and sugar. I originally came across this recipe from Mary Berry's autobiograhy, A Recipe for Life, which I thoroughly enjoyed reading. I think it is described as 'Mary Berry's Best Ever Shortbread' and it really is the best tasting shortbread I've ever come across.

I used a square tin to bake it in (160C for about 25-30 minutes) and then I trimmed off the edges to make it more of a clean cut square once it was cooked.

To add a bit of variety, the heart and flower 'playing pieces' were made from a different type of biscuit. I used the biscuiteers recipe for vanilla biscuits and chocolate biscuits but again used much smaller quantities. I have the Biscuiteers recipe book, but the recipes can also be found on the biscuiteers blog.  I reduced the amount of flour in the vanilla biscuits to 88g plain flour which meant 25g self-raising, 31g each of sugar, butter, and golden syrup and half an egg as well as a little vanilla extract. It sounds weird to say 'half an egg' but I used the other half in the chocolate biscuit recipe so it was fine. For the chocolate biscuits I reduced the plain flour to 68g, which meant 25g self-raising, 18g cocoa powder, then the rest if the same as for the vanilla biscuits with the exception of vanilla extract.

I was actually 10g short of butter for the chocolate biscuit recipe so I added a splash of milk in the hope it would sort it out but that made it a bit too soft which meant, even when chilled, I couldn't cut such neat circles from that dough.

They're baked in the oven for 14-18 minutes at 170C then cooled.

It was all a big rush to get these made on Miss T's hydrotherapy day of the week so I wasn't sure if I'd have time to do coloured icing so I took a picture of them with just the white icing on in case I didn't have time.

Then I decided I would quickly make some pink and purple icing to do a speedy job of decorating them in colour.

Again I used the biscuiteers recipe for the icing. But being in a rush I just couldn't do it as neatly as I've managed before for these cow cookies and for the Iranian new year biscuits I did earlier this year.

I think my top piece of advice for using flood icing and line icing would be to take the time to get the consistency right. The best guidance I found on it is here on the sweet sugarbelle blog.

I'd also recommend sketching a very rough plan so you can work out how many icing colours you'll need to make up and which ones need to be line icing and which need to be flood icing.

Finally, I'd recommend allowing plenty of time - being rushed ends up with messier results like I had today!

I had some leftover dough - so I merged some of it together to make some spare cookies which looked like a marble effect.

Then merged it together some more to try to firm up the softer chocolate dough (because I'd added the milk which I shouldn't have done), and this ended up as a 'chalkboard' and chalk as I really liked Liam's chalkboard idea on GBBO.

So that was biscuit week. Roll on bread week - I don't often have much patience for bread so it will be interesting to see how that goes.

Linking up with the lovely Mummy Mishaps #GBBOBloggers2017 linky: