Pudsey biscuits

Method

• step 1

  Heat oven to 200C/180C fan/gas 6 and line a baking sheet with baking parchment. Put the butter in a bowl and beat it with electric beaters until soft and creamy. Beat in the sugar, then the egg and vanilla, and finally the flour to make a dough. If the dough feels a bit sticky, add a little bit more flour and knead it in.

• step 2

  Roll the dough out so it’s about the thickness of a £1 coin. Cut out shapes using a Pudsey bear cutter or cut around a template you have made. Re-roll off-cuts and repeat.

• step 3

  Transfer the biscuits to the baking sheet and bake for 8-10 mins or until the edges are just brown. Leave to cool completely.

• step 4

  To decorate the biscuits: Mix the icing sugar with enough water to make a stiff paste then roll the white fondant out to 5mm thick and cut into strips to make Pudsey’s eye bandage. Stick it on with the white icing. Decorate with polka dots using coloured icing pens. Make his eye, nose and mouth with the black sugar paste and add a little dot of white icing to the eye. Stick the features down with more icing. Repeat the process with most of the biscuits and decorate the rest with icing simply sprinkled with hundreds and thousands. Will keep for three days in a biscuit tin.