Chocolate biscuit necklaces

As beautiful as they are fun, these chocolate biscuit necklaces are easy to bake, and fun to decorate.

Also great to gift to friends and family, or as a rainy day activity to do with the kids, follow the easy recipe below. Makes: 20-50 biscuits depending on the size of cutters. Ingredients: 

• 250g plain flour
• 25g cocoa
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 100g soft brown sugar
• 75g soft butter
• 1 egg
• 50g golden syrup
• Tubes of icing
• Sprinkle and decorations

Method:

1. In a large mixing bowl sieve the flour, cocoa and baking powder. Stir through the sugar. Add the butter in small chunks and mix in with your fingertips until it looks like breadcrumbs.
2. In a separate small bowl beat the egg and add the syrup. Beat again until well combined.
3. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and bring everything together to form a ball of dough with your hands. Place the dough in a bag in the fridge for at least 30 mins. This can be made the night before you bake.
4. Preheat the oven to 170˚C/150˚C fan/gas mark 3 before you start to cut out the shapes.
5. Place the dough on a floured surface and knead together briefly. Roll out to approx ½ cm thickness and use cutters to make your biscuit shapes. We used hearts, flowers and other small shapes. For boys you can do circles and rectangles to look like dog tags!
6. Make small holes for threading ribbon/cord through later, a straw works well. Place on the baking trays and bake for approx 10-15 mins until they start to darken at the edges or are firm. Be careful as they burn easily and it’s not easy to spot as they’re already dark. If the holes have closed during baking quickly stretch them out with a skewer before they go hard. Leave for 5 mins before transferring to a cooling rack to allow to cool completely before decorating.
7. Lay out a pile of biscuits for each child with a plate and ribbon. Have a selection of things to decorate them with in the centre of the table. Sprinkles, hundreds and thousands and dragees are ideal and will stick well to designs made with icing tubes/pens or glacé icing made with icing sugar and a little water made into a thick paste.
8. Enjoy the squeals of delight and help thread the biscuits onto the ribbons.