Batman and Spiderman Biscuits

Delicious simple vanilla biscuits decorated with royal icing. Easy and great fun to do with children or for children.

1. 1

   The day before, cut out a template for your Batman bat (plenty of sample templates on the internet if needed - trace, or draw by hand). I used an 8cm diameter round cutter for my biscuits and my bat was just under 6cm across. At the same time, make an oval template for the Spiderman biscuits. Mine was approx. 9cm X 6 cm. Use either cardboard or an old plastic lid for the templates.
   
   Roll out the black fondant icing to about 3 mm thick, then cut out as many bat shapes as you need (if making half Spiderman and half Batman, I suggest 10 - 12 if a similar size to mine). Lay them carefully on a board lined with foil or cling film and leave them out overnight to dry (uncovered).
   
   With an electric hand-whisk, or in a mixer, cream the butter, sugar & vanilla together, add the egg and beat in. Sift in the flour and mix on low speed until it starts to come together as a dough, then stop mixing and bring together with your hands. Divide into 2 balls (Just for ease as it is quite a large batch of dough), wrap in cling film, flatten a little, then chill in the fridge for at least half an hour. This dough keeps well in the fridge for 5 days, so you can make them ‘on demand’, if you don’t want to cook them all in one go.
   
   Roll the dough out between 2 sheets of cling film to around 4mm thick (if it is very hard when it first comes out of the fridge, leave it for 5 minutes before rolling). Cut out rounds for the batman biscuits and ovals for Spiderman. I got 10 of each with a little left over (cooks perks mini biscuit!). Lay them on a baking sheet lined with baking paper and chill in the fridge for another 10-15 minutes as this will help them keep their shape when baking.
   
   Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C. Bake for about 10-12 minutes, until they are just starting to turn a golden brown at the edges. Leave on the baking sheet for 5-10 minutes, then move to wire rack to cool completely. They can be baked the day before icing and kept in an airtight tin.
   
   Sift the icing sugar, then make up individual bowls of red, yellow and black icing. You will also need a little icing left white for spiderman's eyes. The consistency should be smooth and spoonable, but not runny. Put each colour into a piping bag or squeezy tube with a plain writing nozzle (2-3mm). You can also just use plastic bags with a corner snipped off, but the finish will not be as neat. Any leftover icing can be kept in a tightly sealed jar for quite a while.
   
   For the Batman biscuits, pipe a yellow outline around the edge of each biscuit. When you have done all of them (i.e. the icing has had at least a couple of minutes to set, but not long enough to go hard), ice the rest of the biscuits with yellow icing. Again after doing all of them, carefully place a fondant bat in the centre of each one. Leave to dry.
   
   For the Spiderman biscuits, pipe a red outline, then pipe a black outline for the eyes (by hand or using a little card or paper template). Next, fill in with the red, leaving only the eyes uncovered. When you have done them all, pipe a black line down the middle followed by one across the centre, outside and between the eyes. Then pipe a diagonal cross, and little curved lines between each of the lines. Leave to dry completely before filling in the eyes with a little white icing. Leave to dry.
   
   Once dry they are ready to eat, or can be stored in an airtight tin for the next day if making in advance.
   
   Enjoy!