Nostalgia Inspired Spring Biscuits/ Baking

Fly me to the moon, let me play among the stars.
Let me see what spring is like on Jupiter and Mars.
In other words, hold my hand.
In other words, baby kiss me.

Fill my heart with song, let me sing forever more.
You are all I long for all I worship and adore.
In other words, please be true.
In other words, I love you.
-Frank Sinatra

(a song I had in my head after a successful baking session. I must have felt very happy and content!)

Baking is not something this time last year I would've said was 'my thing'. I wouldn't have called myself a baker and I wouldn't really say that now. However, lately, I've found myself craving to bake sweet treats and I've enjoyed it. Who'd have thought? I must admit I'm still not a fan of mixing the ingredients for biscuits with my hands- even as a child I wouldn't like this bit which is very peculiar since I love coating my hands with a creative mess! Paint, for example, what's better than colourful splotches of paint leaving their mark on the palms of your hands? 
I digress...

A couple of weeks ago I decided to have a baking afternoon. I was stumped for what to do on my Saturday after a hardcore week of working on my creative project. That was until I scoured my Pinterest Projects To Try board and I discovered a couple sweet recipes to try out. I wrote a few down and built up enthusiasm until I decided to ease myself in and make biscuits. But, these weren't going to be just any biscuits these were going to send me back to sunny days visiting the bakery through the years. You see, for a long time, I would visit a bakery to get my favourite large smiley face biscuit topped with chocolate and sweets. They were absolutely delicious and so I was aware of the difficulty involved in capturing my nostalgic delights. Sadly the bakery closed down after years of scrumminess which made me even more determined to recreate them myself.

Here's what I did:

• Made up biscuits- 4 oz caster sugar, 8 oz stork (butter-Technically I went a bit over on this one but hey ho!), 12oz plain flour.
• The cookie dough was then rolled out on a beautiful cutting board where I cut circles and, of course, a dinosaur. With Parchment paper on baking trays, the biscuits went in the oven at 180 for roughly 20-25 minutes. I would check the progress at 20 minutes then keep checking regularly until I was happy with the colour. I was happy when they were evidently cooked but not too brown.
• After these were cool I melted white chocolate by pouring boiling hot water in a glass bowl and placing a smaller bowl full of small chocolate pieces on top of the water. It took about a bar and a half of chocolate to cover the biscuits; 150g of Ms Molly's chocolate. This was 30p per bar of 100g. 30p! (not sponsored).
• I continued to, for lack of a better word, poke the chocolate pieces until they were all melted.
• To coat the biscuits I started off by dipping them into the bowl. I then resorted to using a knife to spread the chocolate. Truthfully, this was quite challenging. I developed a new found respect to bakers because it is so tricky to get the chocolate smooth all over and spread equally.
• Before the chocolate hardened, I decorated the surface with Smarties, Milky Stars and little Mini Eggs- some of my favourite chocolate! I had fun with creating patterns and eventually recreating the face from my happy memory. My absolute favourite face is the large one with the eyebrows. You've seen it, you know which one I mean.

The next day (Sunday) I took some photos in the wind and sunshine which meant that they could actually then be eaten. As a side note, this was the weekend I learnt how to create decorative paper fans but also discovered This Morning was airing on a Sunday.
What started off as a weekend of stress turned into a very good weekend! I would actually like to start the weekend off by looking at my Projects To Try Pinterest board for inspiration- to give myself a break but pick up new creative skills. I love being able to show something for my time, be it something I've physically made or a blog post. It keeps me going! 

Thoughts on the biscuits-
They went down very well with the family and were very high in demand. When asked what they thought of these delights from a month ago:

All sorts of synonyms for "Yummy"
"very nice.....the bits did keep falling off"

Dad- "make some more and I'll tell you"

As ever, Thank you for reading and Happy Sunday!

Love Buddy Summer xx

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