Think pink

It was my little niece's third birthday on the weekend. I was secretly pleased for another opportunity to use my recent pink 'n' frills obsession for good (biscuits) not evil (sons in skirts).

Here is my take on an idea from the inspiring Planning Queen over at Planning With Kids. Her version is picture perfect; mine is suffering from a distinct case of wonkiness. I'm putting it all down to the modifications I made to the recipe. Yes, definitely the modifications ... not the clumsiness (Note to self: the worst lies are the ones we tell ourselves).

The original Tea Cup idea uses store-bought biscuits (Iced Tic Tocs) and sweets (Allen's Freckles). To make the food Bargy-friendly, I made my own biscuits and pink icing and added hundreds-and-thousands (non-pareils) as the topping.

Bargy's life-threatening allergy to egg makes baking, cake decorating, and creating party foods, a challenge. I love cake decorating, but have long since packed away much of my treasured collection of Wilton decorating paraphernalia. Its just too tricky to do really fancy decorations without egg.

That said, there is an great egg replacer on the market - Orgran's No Egg - that is a lifesaver in the baking department. Its made up of inoffensive things like potato starch, tapioca flour and vegetable gum. Its brilliant in recipes that use egg as a binder (1 - 2 eggs). Where a recipe calls for eggs as the sole raising agent (2+), I sometimes add a little baking powder to help give a bit of extra ooomph.

A 200g (7oz) box of the powder is about $5 and contains the equivalent of 66 eggs. So there is an upside - our "egg" is now much cheaper and easier to store than the real thing. The sort of thing I'd now keep in the pantry for convenience, regardless of allergies. I can't, however, recommend making scrambled No-Egg!

Here is my tried-and-true, egg-free biscuit recipe, that I used for the Tea Cups. Its a fantastic cut-out cookie recipe.

100g butter, softened
100g caster sugar
1 really heaped teaspoon No Egg combined well with 2 tablespoons water (or 1 real egg)
2 teaspoons vanilla
225g plain (all-purpose) flour

1. Preheat the oven to 200 oC
2. Cream the butter and sugar
3. Add the egg (replacer) and vanilla essence
4. Stir in the flour and form a dough (it will be very crumbly at first)
5. Knead the dough on a floured board until smooth
6. Roll out thinly and cut out biscuits
7. Place on baking paper on a tray
   If it is important that your biscuits keep a precise shape, chill them for a short time before baking (this will firm the butter a bit after all the handling)
8. Bake for 10 minutes or until golden
9. Cool on a rack - they will be soft to start and will firm a little as they cool
10. Now ice them in pink, pink, pink*

* This step is optional; you may alternately go put your sons in dresses.