Berry Streusel Bars

 

 My lovely sister and her boyfriend have finally got their first house up together, and were able to host their house warming party a couple of weekends ago. My contribution was a dessert buffet for their party, and this is the first of three recipes I'll be sharing from the buffet. As there were going to be a lot of people there, I opted for a couple of tray-bakes and some muffins, things that are easy to eat with your fingers whist standing around chatting. I first made these about 5 years ago, and they've been a firm favourite with my family ever since so I re-invented them slightly for the party.

Cinnamon Snaps

This recipe is a little adaptation of the gingerbread recipe I used for my house for those who don't like ginger. This made enough dough to make 11 miniature houses as well as about two dozen little stars, so it makes a lot! If you want to make houses, follow the tips at the bottom of this recipe.

Ingredients:
250g unsalted butter
125g light brown muscovado sugar
75g soft brown sugar
4tbsp golden syrup
2tbsp treacle
600g plain flour
2tsp ground cinnamon
1tsp baking powder
Royal icing sugar

Preheat your oven to 180°C and line your baking trays with greaseproof paper.  

In a pan, melt the butter, sugar, golden syrup and treacle together, stirring until its smooth. Remove from the heat and leave to cool slightly.
In a large bowl, sift together the flour, bicarbonate of soda, and cinnamon. Pour the melted butter to the flour mix and mix well, first with a spoon, then with your hands, until it forms a stiff dough. You can add a little more flour if it’s still sticky, or a little splash of milk if it’s too dry and crumbly. Knead for a couple of minutes until its smooth.  

Roll the dough out onto a lightly floured surface, to the thickness of a £1 coin.
Use a cookie cutter to cut out your shapes, re-rolling any left-overs until it's all used up.
 

Space the biscuits out on your trays and bake in the middle of the oven for 10 minutes or until golden in colour. Remove from the oven and leave to cool for a couple of minutes on the tray before moving to a wire rack to cool completely.

 

Once cool, make up the icing as per the instructions on the packet, and ice your biscuits with any design you like. Leave to set overnight before eating.