#BarbourChristmas: How to Ice The Snowman Biscuits

13 Nov 2017

#BarbourChristmas: How to Ice The Snowman Biscuits

#BarbourChristmas
autumn winter 2017

As we celebrate the continuation of the #BarbourChristmas story, featuring 'The Snowman', we meet up with renowned London-based biscuit makers, the Biscuiteers, as they help guide you through the steps to make and ice your own 'The Snowman' biscuits.

The first step is to make the Biscuiteers wonderful vanilla biscuits from their recipe here, which will make up to 25 biscuits, and is incredibly easy to follow.

Next up is the really fun part, where you get to ice the biscuits, and really bring 'The Snowman' to life!

STEP 1: Making the line-icing...

Combine 4 egg whites with 900g of icing sugar into a mixing bowl.
Whisk or beat for about 5 minutes using an electric beater, or whisk until the consistency of toothpaste.
Begin whisking slowly to avoid billowing clouds of icing sugar.
Split your line icing into four batches.
Three of the batches will each need to be coloured; black, orange and green.
Use paste colours rather than food colouring, which will alter your icing consistency.
Cover with cling film if not using immediately, and fill your piping bag when ready to use.

STEP 2. Making the flood-icing...

Combine 150ml of cold water with 900g of icing sugar into a mixing bowl.
As with the line-icing, whisk or beat for about 5 minutes using an electric beater or whisk.
Add small amounts of water to make this a little runnier than the line-icing.
Split about a 5th of your icing out into a bowl and colour with green paste colouring.

STEP 3. Creating the outline...

Decant your line icing into piping bags then slowly trace the outline of the snowman’s body and hat with the line icing, using white for his body and green for his hat.
This will stop the runny flood icing from escaping from the biscuit.
The line icing will need to be left to dry at room temperature for 10 minutes.

ABOVe: step two

ABOVE: steps three to seven

STEP 4. Filling in the biscuit...

Fill the body of 'The Snowman' with the white flood icing and his hat with the green flood icing.
You can either do this by filling squeeze bottles with the icing, or you can spoon the icing onto the biscuit and use a cocktail stick to nudge the icing into the corners and pop any air bubbles.
Be careful not to overfill the biscuit with the flood icing, or damage any of the outline.

STEP 5. Setting the icing...

Set your oven to its lowest temperature (usually around 50°C).
Carefully lay the biscuits onto a baking tray and pop them back into your oven for 40 minutes.
Your biscuits won’t burn, the low heat of the oven will dry the icing and create a glossy looking professional finish.
Leave the biscuits to cool for half an hour.

STEP 6. Adding the detail...

With the black line-icing you can begin to add 'The Snowman’s' three buttons, eyes and a mouth.
Using the green line icing to give him a scarf and add the detail to his hat; both Barbour of course.
Last but not least, add his orange nose.

STEP 7. Finishing touches...

Let your biscuits dry for around 15 minutes at room temperature, then pack them up for your friends and family for Christmas gifts they’ll always remember.

Discover our 2017 animated Christmas film featuring 'The Snowman', and enter our competition to win tins of Biscuiteer Biscuits.