Lace Biscuits

Wotchers!

As you will no doubt have noticed, it is Seville orange season, and whilst I am an ardent marmalade maker, I’m also aware that not everyone else is so here is a recipe you can still enjoy their bitter-sweet flavours in less demanding ways.

These lace biscuits are fantastically light and delicate and make a great ‘barely there’ treat. They can also, whilst still warm from the oven, be manipulated into various three-dimensional shapes and forms, which they will hold once cooled. This makes them great for garnishes and flourishes to finish off a special cake or dessert. You can bake circle of batter and make regular, circle-shaped biscuits, or you can pipe/spread the mixture into more organic shapes. They can be draped over rolling pins, crumpled foil, or handles of wooden spoons; pressed into mini muffin tins or over the outsides of cupcake tins to form cups or baskets. You can see a few suggestions in the photograph below.

You can, of course, make these with other citrus fruits apart from Seville oranges.

You can mix and bake this recipe immediately, but for ease of piping, it is better to chill it in the fridge overnight.

For best results you will need a Silpat silicon mat or similar.

These biscuits will lose their crispness if left uncovered, so be sure to store them in an airtight container.

Lace Biscuits

115g caster sugar
45g plain flour
zest and juice of 1 Seville orange
56g unsalted butter

• Mix the sugar and flour.
• Melt the butter, then mix with the orange juice and zest.
• Pour the butter mixture into the flour and sugar and whisk together until smooth.
• Cover and chill overnight in the fridge.

When ready to bake:

• Preheat the oven to 200°C, 180°C Fan.
• Spoon the mixture into a piping bag.
• Pipe the mixture onto your Silpat mat. Make a test batch first, in order to see how much the mixture spreads. As a general rule, a blob of mixture the size of a 10p piece (2cm) should spread to about 5cm in the oven. If your mixture doesn’t spread as much, or isn’t as lacy as you’d like, you can smooth the batter out a little with the back of a spoon.
• I recommend baking no more than 6 biscuits at a time, which will mean there’s no rush once baked to get them all moulded/folded before they cool.
• Have ready any utensils/moulds you wish to use to shape the biscuits when they come out of the oven.  If you’re making flat biscuits, they can cool on the mat until firm enough to move to a wire rack.
• Bake each batch until the edges have turned brown and the middles have just started to colour, as per the above photograph. Allow your test batch to cool to check they crisp up to your satisfaction. If the middles are too pale, then they won’t be crisp once cooled. As a guide, I found that 6 minutes was ideal for my oven/batter. If your orange was either very juicy, or not very juicy, your batter might need a little longer/less.
• When baked, allow to cool on the mat for about 30 seconds before trying to move them. Too soon and you run the risk of them tearing.
• When cooled, store in an airtight container.

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